Do achievement goals and self-efficacy matter for feedback use?

Background

Instructor feedback in higher education is widely acknowledged as being beneficial for learning and achievement. Students’ motivation as a central determinant of how students perceive feedback and incorporate it into their learning process offers potential to explain and foster successful feedback use but is still little understood. In detail, students’ achievement goals, serving as representations of what students strive for in learning settings, and students’ self-efficacy for revision, are two particularly relevant motivational concepts that can offer insights into how students perceive feedback and use it for revising their work.

Aims

In this study, we aim to elucidate how achievement goals and self-efficacy explain feedback perception and use.

Methods and Sample

A sample of 182 German higher education students reported on their achievement goals for a task, self-efficacy for revising their task, perceived usefulness of the feedback they received, and achievement emotions when reading their feedback in three separate feedback occasions. The use of the feedback for revising their task was measured with both self-report measures and a computer-based similarity score.

Results

Results of two-level path modeling revealed self-efficacy for revision to be linked to perceived usefulness of feedback and emotions while receiving feedback, as well as feedback use. Learning and work avoidance goals for the task predicted perceived usefulness of feedback, which was in turn the strongest predictor of feedback use.

Conclusions

The findings support the theoretical role of motivational factors for feedback perception and use, and emphasize the importance of fostering students’ self-efficacy in utilizing feedback and encouraging learning goals.