Investigating variation in undergraduate students’ feedback seeking experiences: towards the integration of feedback seeking within the curriculum

Abstract

Feedback seeking research envisages pro-active student roles in feedback processes but students seem to hesitate to seek feedback from their teachers despite the potential benefits it offers. Appreciating variation in students’ experiences of feedback seeking is crucial for understanding this issue. This phenomenographic interview-based research investigated variation in the experiences of 24 undergraduate students regarding feedback seeking. An outcome space of five categories was developed: (1) feedback seeking as unnecessary, (2) feedback seeking through monitoring, (3) feedback seeking as impression management, (4) feedback seeking for academic achievement and (5) feedback seeking for broader learning. Broader significance emerges through charting interplay between the mutually reinforcing concepts of feedback seeking and feedback literacy, suggesting benefits of enabling students to appreciate the value of feedback seeking when transitioning to higher education. Surfacing some of the negative views of feedback seeking expressed by students enables us to propose some teaching and learning approaches to reduce their concerns. These implications for practice include developing curriculum-wide opportunities for sustained feedback seeking; establishing psychologically safe environments for feedback seeking to flourish; and designing complex iterative assessments that encourage feedback seeking and uptake. Future possibilities for students to seek feedback from generative artificial intelligence are briefly sketched.

Keywords:

• feedback seeking
• feedback literacy
• cost-value
• phenomenography

Acknowledgement

We thank Tracy X.P. Zou for her helpful advice on earlier versions of the article. Stephanie acknowledges the support of the University of Hong Kong’s Undergraduate Research Fellowship Programme (URFP).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Young

Stephanie Young holds a double degree in English Language and Education from the University of Hong Kong. She currently works as an English teacher in a local Hong Kong secondary school, actively exploring pedagogies that foster holistic student development. Collaborating with Professor David Carless, she co-authored a published paper on feedbackseeking in the international journal Higher Education. Stephanie is dedicated to education and research, aiming to contribute to the field as a lifelong learner and scholar.

David Carless

David Carless works as a Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, and is Head of the Academic Unit SCAPE (Social Contexts and Policies in Education). He is one of the pioneers of feedback literacy research and is listed as a top 0.1% cited researcher in the Stanford top 2% list for social sciences. His books include Designing effective feedback processes in higher education: A learning-focused approach, by Winstone and Carless, 2019 published by Routledge.