Prior experience with online feedback: its influence on students’ engagement

Abstract

Although the literature on feedback processes has identified two approaches to feedback—more transmissive or more dialogical—there is little empirical evidence of how students perceive feedback practices, particularly in online education. Moreover, there is a lack of research addressing previous experience with online feedback (frequency, timing, type of feedback and the opportunity to resubmit their work) and how this influences student engagement. To provide evidence regarding these issues, we administered an online questionnaire to 1,766 bachelor students. Results suggested that students tend to perceive feedback practices as resembling the transmissive model. Even so, the results confirmed that students’ prior experience with online feedback influences their degree of cognitive engagement with it. The discussion in this paper focuses on the importance of carrying out dialogical feedback practices in online education, as well as demonstrating why it is important to purposefully design feedback, at both instructional and institutional levels.