ERIC Number: EJ1377706
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023-Jun
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-1560
EISSN: EISSN-1573-174X
Feedback Literacy: A Critical Review of an Emerging Concept
Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research, v85 n6 p1381-1400 Jun 2023
Systemic challenges for feedback practice are widely discussed in the research literature. The expanding mass higher education systems, for instance, seem to inhibit regular and sustained teacher-student interactions. The concept of "feedback literacy," representing students' and teachers' capacities to optimize the benefits of feedback opportunities, has gained widespread attention by offering new ways of tackling these challenges. This study involves a critical review of the first 49 published articles on feedback literacy. Drawing on science and technology studies, and in particular on Popkewitz's concept of fabrication, we explore how research has invented feedback literacy as a way of reframing feedback processes through the idea of individual skill development. First, we analyze how research has "fabricated" students and teachers through their feedback literacies that can be tracked, measured, and developed. Here, there exists a conceptual shift from analyzing feedback as external input to feedback literacy as a psychological construct residing within individuals. This interpretation carries positive implications of student and teacher empowerment, whilst downplaying policy-level challenges facing feedback interactions. The second contrasting fabrication positions feedback literate students and teachers as socio-culturally situated, communal agents. We conclude that feedback literacy is a powerful idea that, if used carefully, carries potential for reimagining feedback in higher education. It also, however, risks psychologizing students' and teachers' feedback behaviors amidst prevalent assessment and grading policies. We call for further reflexivity in considering whether feedback literacy research aims to challenge or complement the broader socio-political landscapes of higher education.
Descriptors: Feedback (Response), Literacy, Higher Education, Skill Development, Constructivism (Learning), Student Empowerment, Learner Engagement
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Information Analyses
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A