Feedback Research

Our most recent work (lead by Shelby Weisen) asked graduate students to think-aloud while they were reading their feedback. Some of these studnets were given an exemplar assignment with their feedbacks while others were not. We wanted to see if the addition of the exemplar changed how students read their feedback. Spoiler: It did! 

Hannah Lundquist (recently graduated from UMN) lead an investigation into students' emotional reactions to feedback. They explored whether different types of feedback elicited different emotional responses, and then what students did following those emotional responses. 

Alex Troy published her MA thesis! In her project, she explored whether wise feedback encouraged undergraduates use of the feedback and feelings of trust in their instructors as well as the larger university. There were many interesting findings in this work, especially when you dive deeper into the qualitative part of the study. 

In Devina Christianti's MA thesis, she developed one of the first feedback literacy interventions and piloted it in a high school English class.  Even though the intervention was not successful, there is some very valuable insights into classroom based research, and some key takeaways for people developing future feedback literacy interventions. 

We partnered with schools in Indonesia and England to explore students' perceptions and desires surrounding the feedback process. We observed interesting developmental and cross cultural differences. 

Students' expectations about the feedback process will shape what they decide to pay attention to and use. Therefore, we asked undergrads about their perceptions around feedback and what type of feedback they'd like to receive. What students reported knowing about the feedback process was not necessarily consistent with the information they'd like to receive from their professors.