Making peer feedback work: the contribution of technology-mediated dialogic peer feedback to feedback uptake and literacy

Abstract

In recent years, academic and practitioner attention to improving attainment as a result of feedback, as well as satisfaction with it, has led to a conceptualisation of feedback that considers learners’ active role in making feedback processes effective. This has led to interest in ‘feedback literacy’ or what learners need for productive feedback use. Engagement in peer feedback practices is believed to enhance some aspects of feedback literacy, namely, the ability to make evaluative judgements about work quality. However, based on evidence from a qualitative study with 14 undergraduates at a South Korean university, this paper argues that technology-mediated peer feedback practices can also support learners in navigating processes involved in feedback uptake. Results indicate that online feedback dialogues helped learners better understand and co-develop actionable feedback points and process some of the socio-affective and relational aspects of feedback engagement. The technology could also mediate multiple, recursive task-oriented discussions over space and time in emergent collaborative learning spaces. The results provide evidence for a new understanding of technology-mediated dialogic peer feedback as an online community practice and have implications for practitioners working in online and blended conditions.

Keywords:

• Technology-mediated dialogic peer feedback
• collaborative learning
• feedback engagement
• online learning community

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr Sin Wang Chong, Dr Naomi Winstone and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and encouragement on an earlier draft. I acknowledge that this paper is adapted from my doctoral thesis at the UCL Institute of Education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Wood

James is a member of the Faculty of Liberal Education at Seoul National University in South Korea. His academic work explores how feedback uptake, engagement, and agency can be supported from socio-constructivist, socio-cultural, and socio-material perspectives utilising technology.