Teacher feedback literacy and its interplay with student feedback literacy
Open accessAbstract
Feedback processes are difficult to manage, and the accumulated frustrations of teachers and students inhibit the learning potential of feedback. In this conceptual paper, challenges to the development of effective feedback processes are reviewed and a new framework for teacher feedback literacy is proposed. The framework comprises three dimensions: a design dimension focuses on designing feedback processes for student uptake and enabling student evaluative judgment; a relational dimension represents the interpersonal side of feedback exchanges; and a pragmatic dimension addresses how teachers manage the compromises inherent in disciplinary and institutional feedback practices. Implications discuss the need for partnership approaches to feedback predicated on shared responsibilities between teachers and students, and the interplay between teacher and student feedback literacy. Key recommendations for practice are suggested within the design, relational and pragmatic dimensions. Avenues for further research are proposed, including how teacher and student feedback literacy might be developed in tandem.
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The findings support contemporary feedback scholarship, which views feedback as an active process of learner sense-making and action rather than the passive transmission of information.
“This supports contemporary feedback scholarship, which views feedback as an active process of learner sense-making and action rather than the passive transmission of information [2, 4, 20, 27, 67].”
From Making AI-Generated Feedback Matter: A Large-Scale Study of Feedback Workflows and Student Enactment (2026) · cites this paper as [67]
Cites
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“Many teachers and students seem to conceive of feedback in cognitivist terms, as information about strengths and weaknesses of student work and how it can be improved (Hattie and Timperley 2007; McLean, Bond, and Nicholson 2015).”
The development of student feedback literacy: Enabling uptake of feedback
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Self-citationRethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design
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“…to reap benefit from feedback processes depend in part on how teachers create environments that facilitate these outcomes (see, for example, Boud and Molloy 2013a; Carless and Boud 2018; Winstone and Carless 2019), yet the nature of teachers’ roles has not hitherto been consolidated into a…”
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“There is growing recognition that for feedback processes to be effective, shared responsibilities between students and teachers are necessary (Nash and Winstone 2017).”
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Self-citationThe feedback triangle and the enhancement of dialogic feedback processes
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“Partnerships in feedback require reduction in power-differentials with teachers relinquishing some power, and students taking increased responsibilities (Yang and Carless 2013).”
Self-citationConceptions of students as partners
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A review of feedback models and typologies: Towards an integrative model of feedback elements
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Self-citationInstructors’ Perspectives of Challenges and Barriers to Providing Effective Feedback
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Diversity of assessment practices and student perceptions of assessment in Finland
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Making AI-Generated Feedback Matter: A Large-Scale Study of Feedback Workflows and Student Enactment
Alsaiari, O., Baghaei, N., Lodge, J. M., Gaševi'c, D., Winstone, N., & Khosravi, H. (2026) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2608.11625
“This supports contemporary feedback scholarship, which views feedback as an active process of learner sense-making and action rather than the passive transmission of information [2, 4, 20, 27, 67].”
Self-citation
- Authors
- Carless, D., & Winstone, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- University of Surrey (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Carless, David
- Venue
- Teaching in Higher Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-06-22
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 150-163
- ISSN
- 1356-2517 (ISSN-L)
- 1470-1294
- OpenAlex
- W3035877907
- Cited by
- 603
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2026: 155 · 2025: 119 · 2024: 120 · 2023: 93 · 2022: 68 · 2021: 43 · 2020: 5
- FWCI
- 81.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- figshare.com
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Teaching in Higher Education (publishedVersion)
- Deakin Research Online (Deakin University) (submittedVersion)
- Surrey Research Insight Open Access (The University of Surrey) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Student Assessment and Feedback
- Social Sciences › Education › Evaluation of Teaching Practices
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Practises and Engagement
- Keywords
- feedback literacy, feedback mechanisms, feedback control design, interpersonal feedback, teacher-student partnership, university teaching
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