Investigating non-engagement with feedback in higher education as a social practice

Abstract

Quality in feedback processes rests on students’ engagement with them. A crucial question is therefore why students do not always engage. Scholars have defined engagement as a social practice, pointing to the influence of context but without explaining its nature. The purpose of this article is to argue that existing approaches without a theory of the social cannot fully explain non-engagement and that a practice theoretical approach may fill this gap. It introduces Stephen Kemmis' practice ontology and demonstrates how a feedback practice can be analysed to explain a weak engagement. The article’s contribution to research in engagement with feedback is a new ontology of practice and its methodological apparatus.

Keywords:

• feedback
• engagement with feedback
• practice theory
• Stephen Kemmis
• Theodore Schatzki

Acknowledgements

Thank you for highly valuable support to Torben Jensen, Aarhus University, Denmark; Anders Buch, Aalborg University, Denmark; Karen Handley, Oxford Brookes University, UK; Berry O’Donovan, Oxford Brookes University, UK.