Longitudinal perspectives on students’ experiences of feedback: a need for teacher–student partnerships

Abstract

How students react to and use feedback is an important element of their higher education experience. Within the constraints of mass higher education, effective feedback processes are, however, difficult to manage. The aim of this longitudinal qualitative inquiry is to investigate through repeated interviews and related documentary analysis how four case study learners experienced feedback processes over the duration of their undergraduate studies. The analysis is guided by a social constructivist perspective on feedback research. The findings highlight students’ development of more sophisticated orientations to feedback over time; how they experienced and used feedback over the shorter and longer term; their varied affective responses; and how their perspectives evolved. The novel aspects of the findings lie in detailing the individual nature of students’ responses to feedback and documenting the different ways these changed during their undergraduate studies. The role of grades and projected honours classification was a significant element of the performative nature of the students’ experience, and impacted on the extent to which they engaged with feedback. Students often felt that there were dissonances between feedback that teachers were providing and what would be useful or palatable to them. The implications propose that the concept of students as partners can support the reframing of feedback processes as a partnership between students and teachers. Partnership approaches resonate with the need for social constructivist approaches to feedback where knowledge and understanding are co-constructed. Feedback partnerships also carry potential to enable the mutual development of staff and student feedback literacy.