Digital feedback histories: Tracing the influence of past experiences on undergraduate students’ university transitions

Lauren Shields

doi:10.56433/w8sa5633

Authors

Lauren Shields Imperial College London

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56433/w8sa5633

Keywords:

feedback, digital feedback, sociomaterialism, transition to university

Abstract

A persistent challenge in Higher Education (HE) is students’ dissatisfaction with feedback as they transition from school to university. A relatively under-explored aspect of this issue is the role digital technologies may play in shaping students’ perceptions and expectations of feedback – particularly in the shift from low-digital, personal school settings to the highly digital, large-cohort university context.

Limited attention has been paid thus far to how digital technologies in earlier learning contexts might inform students’ expectations and attitudes towards feedback in HE. Much of the current literature explores cultural and linguistic influences on feedback experience or treats technology as overly instrumental or having inherent potential to improve feedback practices. What is missing is a more critical view of the complex ways digital technologies intertwine with experience.

This ‘On the Horizon’ piece draws on preliminary findings from a PhD study following 24 first-year STEM undergraduate students using interviews and diaries. I explore how students’ previous encounters with digital technologies and feedback shapes their perceptions at university. Initial findings, generating using a Reflexive Thematic Analysis approach, indicate two significant themes: the materialisation of care and trust in feedback and the shifting role of peer comparison across educational contexts.

As educators face increasing demands to deliver personalised feedback practices, it is essential to recognise how students’ prior experiences might interplay with their engagement in feedback processes.

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