Sreeja NARAYANANKUTTY1*, Yang Yann FOO1, Fong Yee CHIU1, and Joo Seng GAN2
1Department of Technology Enhanced Learning & Innovation, Office of Education,
Duke-NUS Medical School
2Centre for Development of Teaching & Learning, NUS
Narayanankutty, S., Foo, Y. Y., Chiu, F. Y., & Gan, M. J. S. (2023). Unveiling the influence of emotions on students' feedback uptake [Paper presentation]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/unveiling-the-influence-of-emotions-on-students-feedback-uptake/
SUB-THEME
Others
KEYWORDS
Feedback uptake, emotions, emotion regulation, peer support, control and value appraisals
CATEGORY
Paper Presentation
BACKGROUND
The ongoing challenge to improve students’ variable feedback uptake (Jonsson & Panadero, 2018) has prompted calls to understand how emotions (Goetz et al., 2018) affect the way students process and use feedback (Lipnevich & Smith, 2022). Our study was underpinned by Pekrun’s (2006) control-value theory of achievement emotions, and was guided by this question: How do emotions influence graduate medical students’ feedback uptake?
SUMMARY OF WORK
We conducted six focus group discussions (FGD) and twelve interviews with 27 graduate medical students in Singapore (age: 18 to 35, with and without working experience). We asked them to describe the emotions they experienced when given positive and negative feedback, and how these emotions influenced their feedback uptake. Voluntary recruitment was made via email, posters, and presentations at student meetings. The FGD and interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic (Terry et al., 2017). We wrote familiarisation notes, coded the data inductively (at both latent and semantic levels), and deductively (sensitised by CVT constructs of perceived control, perceived value and activating achievement emotions). Candidate themes were then constructed, revised, and finalised.
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
We constructed three themes: 1) control and value appraisals may supersede valence in influencing feedback uptake; 2) emotion regulation facilitated productive feedback processing; and 3) peers helped students to process their emotions. Feedback valence seemed less important than whether the feedback offered students opportunities to improve. Positive feedback deemed disingenuous or incongruous undermined the credibility of the feedback provider and tended to be ignored, while negative feedback that enhanced participants’ perceived self-efficacy to successfully tackle some future tasks (control appraisals) that supported their learning goals (value appraisals) were accepted. Even though negative feedback would upset the participants, they regulated their emotions by practicing mindfulness to calm themselves down to process the feedback in a more calibrated fashion. Participants also reported that they turned to peers to process the negative emotions they experienced. Below are some of the selected quotes for illustrating each theme and more will be shared later.
Theme 1
“I’ve been told, very straightforward that, hey, this will not work, and this is why it will not work. Regardless of whether I attach my identity to what I was doing, feedback (that helps me improve) is very easy to accept, because we all have to achieve the same goal.” (Year 1_P8)
Theme 2
“Emotion is something we cannot control many times. But we can actually control our behavior. I practice mindfulness to calm myself down.” (Year 3_P1)
Theme 3
“If it’s pertaining to stress or whatever, I have my external support network, my friends and classmates help a great deal.” (Year 2_P2)
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Our findings suggest that negative feedback could be accepted, which contrasts with prior research indicating that negative feedback aroused negative emotions leading to poor uptake (Sargeant et al., 2005; Goetz et al., 2018). However, for negative feedback to be accepted it needs to have high perceived control and value. To accept such feedback, participants had to process their emotions on their own and also with peer support. Hence it may be useful for university teachers to consider adopting feedback models such as R2C2 (Sargent et al., 2015, 2016, 2017), an evidence-based and theoretically-informed approach that promotes feedback dialogue by building relationship, exploring reactions, exploring content, and coaching for performance change. Pertaining to feedback uptake, the exploring content component could provide opportunities for teachers to guide students to self-assess goals the latter deem important using stated rubrics. By so doing, it may help the students be aware of the changes they need to make, and the desire for improvement might motivate them to exercise emotion regulation strategies to accept and use the teachers’ feedback.
REFERENCES
Goetz, T., Lipnevich, A. A., Krannich, M., & Gogol, K. (2018). Performance feedback and emotions. In A. A. Lipnevich & J. K. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback (1st ed., pp. 554–574). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316832134.027
Jonsson, A., & Panadero, E. (2018). Facilitating students’ active engagement with feedback. In A. A. Lipnevich & J. K. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Instructional Feedback (1st ed., pp. 531–553). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316832134.026
Lipnevich, A. A., & Smith, J. K. (2022). Student–feedback interaction model: Revised. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 75, 101208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2022.101208
Pekrun, R. (2006). The control-value theory of achievement emotions: Assumptions, corollaries, and implications for educational research and practice. Educational Psychology Review, 18(4), 315–41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-006-9029-9
Sargeant, J., Mann, K., & Ferrier, S. (2005). Exploring family physicians’ reactions to multisource feedback: Perceptions of credibility and usefulness: original article. Medical Education, 39(5), 497–504. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2005.02124.x
Sargeant, J., Lockyer, J. M., Mann, K., Armson, H., Warren, A., Zetkulic, M., Soklaridis, S., Könings, K. D., Ross, K., Silver, I., Holmboe, E., Shearer, C., & Boudreau, M. (2018). The R2C2 model in residency education: How does it foster coaching and promote feedback use? Academic Medicine, 93(7), 1055–63. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000002131
Sargeant, J., Lockyer, J., Mann, K., Holmboe, E., Silver, I., Armson, H., Driessen, E., MacLeod, T., Yen, W., Ross, K., & Power, M. (2015). Facilitated reflective performance feedback: Developing an evidence- and theory-based model that builds relationship, explores reactions and content, and coaches for performance change (R2C2). Academic Medicine, 90(12), 1698–1706. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000809
Sargeant, J., Mann, K., Manos, S., Epstein, I., Warren, A., Shearer, C., & Boudreau, M. (2017). R2C2 in action: Testing an evidence-based model to facilitate feedback and coaching in residency. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 9(2), 165–170. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-16-00398.1
Terry, G., Hayfield, N., Clarke, V., & Braun V. (2017). Thematic analysis. In C. Willig, W. Stainton Rogers (Eds), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17-37. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5251-4_103 .
FUNDING
This research is supported by Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Tertiary Education Research Fund (MOE2021-TRF-032). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of the Ministry of Education, Singapore.
