Sender preferences for delivering feedback: channels, privacy, and synchronicity

Abstract

This study investigated preference for delivering feedback, including preferred channels, degree of privacy, and degree of synchronicity. Participants were asked to rate their preferences for various channels and delivery methods as senders of feedback. Specifically, this study explored how senior-level undergraduate students would prefer to deliver informal feedback to prospective students regarding their scores on a standardized test. Face to face delivery was the most preferred channel over email, chat, phone call, and text message. The participants also rated more synchronous delivery more highly regardless of feedback valence. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Feedback
• Privacy
• Synchronicity
• Channels

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The larger study is unpublished thus far. There is one other paper written from this data set which analyzes the actual feedback messages the students wrote out; they are coded and categorized and comparisons are made between positive and negative messages. The only overlapping data is the demographics of the sample.