Toward a paradigm shift in feedback research: Five further steps influenced by self-regulated learning theory

Abstract

As the articles in this special issue on “Psychological Perspectives on the Effects and Effectiveness of Assessment Feedback” have shown, feedback is a key factor in education. Although there exists a substantial body of research on the topic, it is imperative to continue advancing the field. My aim is to outline five steps to solidify the potential paradigm shift that the feedback field may already be experiencing, while incorporating the insights gleaned from the articles within this special issue. Firstly, there is a need to develop new models that thoroughly explore and operationalize the intricacies of the feedback phenomenon. Secondly, it is essential to conceptualize feedback as a dynamic process and collect data that directly investigates this process. Thirdly, it would be advantageous to leverage insights from the self-regulated learning field, which has made significant strides in advancing measurement methods applicable to feedback research. Fourthly, employing multimodal methods can enrich our comprehension of the multifaceted nature of the feedback process. Lastly, placing the feedback agent at the core of the feedback process, with particular attention to individual differences, is of utmost importance.

Acknowledgments

This manuscript has received considerable amounts of feedback from colleagues. Thanks to the following colleagues that commented and even edited the full manuscript: Phil Winne (1st version), Anders Jonsson (2nd version), Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz (3rd version), and Gavin Brown (3rd version) and extensive help with editing the text. For providing very detailed feedback and extensive edits on the versions of the manuscript, to the editors of the special issue Naomi Winstone and Robert Nash. Special thanks to the reviewer that challenged me to “push harder” giving excellent ideas on how to improve the paper. Thanks to the authors of the papers in the special issue for helping me interpret their work, apart from the already mentioned: Emily Fyfe, Carlton Fong, and Kent Harber who triggered very interesting conversations. Finally, thanks to Javier Fernández for editing the MISCA model figure.

Disclosure statement

Responsible use of AI Tools in Academic Content Creation: In the third resubmission of this manuscript, I used Chat GPT 3.5 in sixteen occasions to edit lengthy sentences. I did not use it to create new content. In case interested, I kept a list with all the edits.

Additional information

Funding

Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) National I + D Call (Convocatoria Excelencia) project reference PID2019-108982GB-l00. Funded by contribution of the Basque Government [Ref. IT1624-22] to the group Education Regulated Learning and Assessment.