feedback on homework examples

51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

Constructive feedback is feedback that helps students learn and grow.

Even though it highlights students’ weaknesses, it is not negative feedback because it has a purpose. It is designed to help them identify areas for improvement.

It serves both as an example of positive reinforcement and a reminder that there is always room for further improvement. Studies show that students generally like feedback that points them in the right direction and helps them to improve. It can also increase motivation for students.

Why Give Constructive Feedback?

Constructive feedback is given to help students improve. It can help people develop a growth mindset by helping them understand what they need to do to improve.

It can also help people to see that their efforts are paying off and that they can continue to grow and improve with continued effort.

Additionally, constructive feedback helps people to feel supported and motivated to keep working hard. It shows that we believe in their ability to grow and succeed and that we are willing to help them along the way.

How to Give Constructive Feedback

Generally, when giving feedback, it’s best to:

Make your feedback specific to the student’s work
Point out areas where the student showed effort and where they did well
Offer clear examples of how to improve
Be positive about the student’s prospects if they put in the hard work to improve
Encourage the student to ask questions if they don’t understand your feedback

Furthermore, it is best to follow up with students to see if they have managed to implement the feedback provided.

General Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

The below examples are general templates that need to be edited so they are specific to the student’s work.

1. You are on the right track. By starting to study for the exam earlier, you may be able to retain more knowledge on exam day.

2. I have seen your improvement over time. As a next step, it is a good idea to…

3. You have improved a lot and should start to look towards taking on harder tasks for the future to achieve more self-development.

4. You have potential and should work on your weaknesses to achieve better outcomes. One area for improvement is…

5. Keep up the good work! You will see better results in the future if you make the effort to attend our study groups more regularly.

6. You are doing well, but there is always room for improvement. Try these tips to get better results: …

7. You have made some good progress, but it would be good to see you focusing harder on the assignment question so you don’t misinterpret it next time.

8. Your efforts are commendable, but you could still do better if you provide more specific examples in your explanations.

9. You have done well so far, but don’t become complacent – there is always room for improvement! I have noticed several errors in your notes, including…

10. It is great that you are trying your best, but don’t stop here – keep pushing yourself to get even better results. It would be good to see you editing your work to remove the small errors creeping into your work…

11. You have put in a lot of hard work, and it is starting to show. One area for improvement is your tone of voice, which sometimes comes across too soft. Don’t be afraid to project your voice next time.

12. You are making good progress, but don’t forget to focus on your weaknesses too. One weakness to focus on is…

13. Your efforts are commendable, but it would have been good to have seen you focus throughout as your performance waned towards the end of the session.

15. While your work is good, I feel you are becoming complacent – keep looking for ways to improve. For example, it would be good to see you concentrating harder on providing critique of the ideas explored in the class.

16. It is great that you are trying your best, but don’t stop here – keep pushing yourself to get even better results! Try to improve your handwriting by slowing down and focusing on every single letter.

17. You have put in a lot of hard work, and it is starting to show. Keep up the good work and you will see your grades slowly grow more and more. I’d like to see you improving your vocabulary for future pieces.

18. You are making good progress, but don’t forget to focus on your weaknesses too. One weakness to focus on is…

19. You have potential and should work on your using more appropriate sources to achieve better outcomes. As a next step, it is a good idea to…

Constructive Feedback for an Essay

1. Your writing style is good but you need to use more academic references in your paragraphs.

2. While you have reached the required word count, it would be good to focus on making sure every paragraph addresses the essay question.

3. You have a good structure for your essay, but you could improve your grammar and spelling.

4. You have made some good points, but you could develop them further by using more examples.

5. Your essay is well-written, but it would be helpful to provide more analysis of the topic.

6. You have answered the question well, but you could improve your writing style by being more concise.

7. Excellent job! You have covered all the key points and your writing is clear and concise.

8. There are a few errors in your essay, but overall it is well-written and easy to understand.

9. There are some mistakes in terms of grammar and spelling, but you have some good ideas worth expanding on.

10. Your essay is well-written, but it needs more development in terms of academic research and evidence.

11. You have done a great job with what you wrote, but you missed a key part of the essay question.

12. The examples you used were interesting, but you could have elaborated more on their relevance to the essay.

13. There are a few errors in terms of grammar and spelling, but your essay is overall well-constructed.

14. Your essay is easy to understand and covers all the key points, but you could use more evaluative language to strengthen your argument.

15. You have provided a good thesis statement , but the examples seem overly theoretical. Are there some practical examples that you could provide?

Constructive Feedback for Student Reports

1. You have worked very hard this semester. Next semester, work on being more consistent with your homework.

2. You have improved a lot this semester, but you need to focus on not procrastinating.

3. You are doing well in most subjects, but you could improve your grades by paying more attention in class and completing all your homework.

4. You are doing well in most subjects, but you could still improve your grades by studying more and asking for help when you don’t understand something.

5. You have shown great improvement this semester, keep up the good work! However, you might want to focus on improving your test scores by practicing more.

6. You have made some good progress this semester, but you need to continue working hard if you want to get good grades next year when the standards will rise again.

7. Next semester, focus on completing all your homework on time and paying more attention in class.

8. You have worked hard this semester, but you could still improve your grades by taking your time rather than racing through the work.

9. Next semester, focus on completing all your homework in advance so you have time to check it over before submission.

10. While you usually understand the instructions, don’t forget to ask for help when you don’t understand something rather than guessing.

11. You have shown great improvement this semester, but you need to focus some more on being self-motivated rather than relying on me to keep you on task.

Constructive feedback on Homework

1. While most of your homework is great, you missed a few points in your rush to complete it. Next time, slow down and make sure your work is thorough.

2. You put a lot of effort into your homework, and it shows. However, make sure to proofread your work for grammar and spelling mistakes.

3. You did a great job on this assignment, but try to be more concise in your writing for future assignments.

4. This homework is well-done, but you could have benefited from more time spent on research.

5. You have a good understanding of the material, but try to use more examples in your future assignments.

6. You completed the assignment on time and with great accuracy. I noticed you didn’t do the extension tasks. I’d like to see you challenging yourself in the future.

Examples of Feedback for Teachers
75 Formative Assessment Examples

Giving and receiving feedback is an important part of any learning process. All feedback needs to not only grade work, but give advice on next steps so students can learn to be lifelong learners. By providing constructive feedback, we can help our students to iteratively improve over time. It can be challenging to provide useful feedback, but by following the simple guidelines and examples outlined in this article, I hope you can provide comments that are helpful and meaningful.

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ Social-Emotional Learning (Definition, Examples, Pros & Cons)
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is Educational Psychology?
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ What is IQ? (Intelligence Quotient)
Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 5 Top Tips for Succeeding at University

2 thoughts on “51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students”

Very helpful to see so much great developmental feedback with so many different examples.

Great examples of constructive feedback, also has reinforced on the current approach i take.

16 constructive feedback examples — and tips for how to use them

constructive-feedback-examples-man-presenting-in-front-of-team

Giving constructive feedback is nerve-wracking for many people. But feedback is also necessary for thriving in the workplace.

It helps people flex and grow into new skills, capabilities, and roles. It creates more positive and productive relationships between employees. And it helps to reach goals and drive business value.

But feedback is a two-way street. More often than not, it’s likely every employee will have to give constructive feedback in their careers. That’s why it’s helpful to have constructive feedback examples to leverage for the right situation.

We know employees want feedback. But one study found that people want feedback if they’re on the receiving end . In fact, in every case, participants rated their desire for feedback higher as the receiver. While the fear of feedback is very real, it’s important to not shy away from constructive feedback opportunities. After all, it could be the difference between a flailing and thriving team.

If you’re trying to overcome your fear of providing feedback, we’ve compiled a list of 16 constructive feedback examples for you to use. We’ll also share some best practices on how to give effective feedback .

What is constructive feedback?

When you hear the word feedback, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? What feelings do you have associated with feedback? Oftentimes, feedback conversations are anxiety-ridden because it’s assumed to be negative feedback. Unfortunately, feedback has this binary stigma, it’s either good or bad.

But in reality, there are plenty of types of feedback leveraged in both personal and professional relationships. They don’t all fall into one camp or the other. And each type of feedback is serving a purpose to ultimately better an individual, team, or work environment.

For example, positive feedback can be used to reinforce desired behaviors or big accomplishments. Real-time feedback is reserved for those “in the moment” situations. Like if I’ve made a mistake or a typo in a blog, I’d want my teammates to give me real-time feedback .

However, constructive feedback is its own ball game.

What is constructive feedback?

Constructive feedback is a supportive way to improve areas of opportunity for an individual person, team, relationship, or environment. In many ways, constructive feedback is a combination of constructive criticism paired with coaching skills.

16 constructive feedback examples to use

To truly invest in building a feedback culture , your employees need to feel comfortable giving feedback. After all, organizations are people, which means we’re all human. We make mistakes but we’re all capable of growth and development. And most importantly, everyone everywhere should be able to live with more purpose, clarity, and passion.

But we won’t unlock everyone’s full potential unless your people are comfortable giving feedback. Some employee feedback might be easier to give than others, like ways to improve a presentation.

But sometimes, constructive feedback can be tricky, like managing conflict between team members or addressing negative behavior. As any leader will tell you, it’s critical to address negative behaviors and redirect them to positive outcomes. Letting toxic behavior go unchecked can lead to issues with employee engagement , company culture, and overall, your business’s bottom line.

Regardless of where on the feedback spectrum your organization falls, having concrete examples will help set up your people for success. Let’s talk through some examples of constructive feedback. For any of these themes, it’s always good to have specific examples handy to help reinforce the feedback you’re giving. We’ll also give some sample scenarios of when these phrases might be most impactful and appropriate.

Constructive feedback examples about communication skills

An employee speaks over others and interrupts in team meetings.

“I’ve noticed you can cut off team members or interrupt others. You share plenty of good ideas and do good work. To share some communication feedback , I’d love to see how you can support others in voicing their own ideas in our team meetings.”

An employee who doesn’t speak up or share ideas in team meetings.

“I’ve noticed that you don’t often share ideas in big meetings. But in our one-on-one meetings , you come up with plenty of meaningful and creative ideas to help solve problems. What can I do to help make you more comfortable speaking up in front of the team?”

An employee who is brutally honest and blunt.

“Last week, I noticed you told a teammate that their work wasn’t useful to you. It might be true that their work isn’t contributing to your work, but there’s other work being spread across the team that will help us reach our organizational goals. I’d love to work with you on ways to improve your communication skills to help build your feedback skills, too. Would you be interested in pursuing some professional development opportunities?”

An employee who has trouble building rapport because of poor communication skills in customer and prospect meetings.

“I’ve noticed you dive right into the presentation with our customer and prospect meetings. To build a relationship and rapport, it’s good to make sure we’re getting to know everyone as people. Why don’t you try learning more about their work, priorities, and life outside of the office in our next meeting?”

constructive-feedback-examples-woman-with-hands-up-at-table

Constructive feedback examples about collaboration

An employee who doesn’t hold to their commitments on group or team projects.

“I noticed I asked you for a deliverable on this key project by the end of last week. I still haven’t received this deliverable and wanted to follow up. If a deadline doesn’t work well with your bandwidth, would you be able to check in with me? I’d love to get a good idea of what you can commit to without overloading your workload.”

An employee who likes to gatekeep or protect their work, which hurts productivity and teamwork .

“Our teams have been working together on this cross-functional project for a couple of months. But yesterday, we learned that your team came across a roadblock last month that hasn’t been resolved. I’d love to be a partner to you if you hit any issues in reaching our goals. Would you be willing to share your project plan or help provide some more visibility into your team’s work? I think it would help us with problem-solving and preventing problems down the line.”

An employee who dominates a cross-functional project and doesn’t often accept new ways of doing things.

“I’ve noticed that two team members have voiced ideas that you have shut down. In the spirit of giving honest feedback, it feels like ideas or new solutions to problems aren’t welcome. Is there a way we could explore some of these ideas? I think it would help to show that we’re team players and want to encourage everyone’s contributions to this project.”

Constructive feedback examples about time management

An employee who is always late to morning meetings or one-on-ones.

“I’ve noticed that you’re often late to our morning meetings with the rest of the team. Sometimes, you’re late to our one-on-ones, too. Is there a way I can help you with building better time management skills ? Sometimes, the tardiness can come off like you don’t care about the meeting or the person you’re meeting with, which I know you don’t mean.”

A direct report who struggles to meet deadlines.

“Thanks for letting me know you’re running behind schedule and need an extension. I’ve noticed this is the third time you’ve asked for an extension in the past two weeks. In our next one-on-one, can you come up with a list of projects and the amount of time that you’re spending on each project? I wonder if we can see how you’re managing your time and identify efficiencies.”

An employee who continuously misses team meetings.

“I’ve noticed you haven’t been present at the last few team meetings. I wanted to check in to see how things are going. What do you have on your plate right now? I’m concerned you’re missing critical information that can help you in your role and your career.”

constructive-feedback-examples-woman-handing-people-papers

Constructive feedback examples about boundaries

A manager who expects the entire team to work on weekends.

“I’ve noticed you send us emails and project plans over the weekends. I put in a lot of hard work during the week, and won’t be able to answer your emails until the work week starts again. It’s important that I maintain my work-life balance to be able to perform my best.”

An employee who delegates work to other team members.

“I’ve noticed you’ve delegated some aspects of this project that fall into your scope of work. I have a full plate with my responsibilities in XYZ right now. But if you need assistance, it might be worth bringing up your workload to our manager.”

A direct report who is stressed about employee performance but is at risk of burning out.

“I know we have performance reviews coming up and I’ve noticed an increase in working hours for you. I hope you know that I recognize your work ethic but it’s important that you prioritize your work-life balance, too. We don’t want you to burn out.”

Constructive feedback examples about managing

A leader who is struggling with team members working together well in group settings.

“I’ve noticed your team’s scores on our employee engagement surveys. It seems like they don’t collaborate well or work well in group settings, given their feedback. Let’s work on building some leadership skills to help build trust within your team.”

A leader who is struggling to engage their remote team.

“In my last skip-levels with your team, I heard some feedback about the lack of connections . It sounds like some of your team members feel isolated, especially in this remote environment. Let’s work on ways we can put some virtual team-building activities together.”

A leader who is micromanaging , damaging employee morale.

“In the last employee engagement pulse survey, I took a look at the leadership feedback. It sounds like some of your employees feel that you micromanage them, which can damage trust and employee engagement. In our next one-on-one, let’s talk through some projects that you can step back from and delegate to one of your direct reports. We want to make sure employees on your team feel ownership and autonomy over their work.”

8 tips for providing constructive feedback

Asking for and receiving feedback isn’t an easy task.

But as we know, more people would prefer to receive feedback than give it. If giving constructive feedback feels daunting, we’ve rounded up eight tips to help ease your nerves. These best practices can help make sure you’re nailing your feedback delivery for optimal results, too.

Be clear and direct (without being brutally honest). Make sure you’re clear, concise, and direct. Dancing around the topic isn’t helpful for you or the person you’re giving feedback to.

Provide specific examples. Get really specific and cite recent examples. If you’re vague and high-level, the employee might not connect feedback with their actions.

constructive-feedback-examples-you-need-a-coach

Set goals for the behavior you’d like to see changed. If there’s a behavior that’s consistent, try setting a goal with your employee. For example, let’s say a team member dominates the conversation in team meetings. Could you set a goal for how many times they encourage other team members to speak and share their ideas?

Give time and space for clarifying questions. Constructive feedback can be hard to hear. It can also take some time to process. Make sure you give the person the time and space for questions and follow-up.

Know when to give feedback in person versus written communication. Some constructive feedback simply shouldn’t be put in an email or a Slack message. Know the right communication forum to deliver your feedback.

Check-in. Make an intentional effort to check in with the person on how they’re doing in the respective area of feedback. For example, let’s say you’ve given a teammate feedback on their presentation skills . Follow up on how they’ve invested in building their public speaking skills . Ask if you can help them practice before a big meeting or presentation.

Ask for feedback in return. Feedback can feel hierarchical and top-down sometimes. Make sure that you open the door to gather feedback in return from your employees.

Start giving effective constructive feedback

Meaningful feedback can be the difference between a flailing and thriving team. To create a feedback culture in your organization, constructive feedback is a necessary ingredient.

Think about the role of coaching to help build feedback muscles with your employees. With access to virtual coaching , you can make sure your employees are set up for success. BetterUp can help your workforce reach its full potential.

Elevate your communication skills

Unlock the power of clear and persuasive communication. Our coaches can guide you to build strong relationships and succeed in both personal and professional life.

Madeline Miles

Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change. She holds a bachelor's in English Creative Writing and Communication Studies and lives in Denver, Colorado. In her spare time, she's usually somewhere outside (preferably in the mountains) — and enjoys poetry and fiction.

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Constructive criticism examples for students: how to give better feedback

Educators can harness the power of effective feedback to improve students’ learning outcomes . And constructive criticism is one approach that can help educators ensure their feedback hits the mark!

So, let’s explore examples of constructive criticism that are ideal for use with students and examine how this method can elevate classroom feedback.

What is constructive criticism?

Constructive criticism is a feedback method where educators target areas for improvement in students’ work, learning, or behavior. For constructive criticism to be considered helpful to students, it needs to embody these three main characteristics:

1. Constructive criticism is specific

Educators identify precise points for students to improve on.

2. Constructive criticism is actionable

Educators give students practical ways to address their points for improvement.

3. Constructive criticism is beneficial to students

Students understand exactly what to improve and the steps they need to take to achieve this, enabling them to progress.

Is constructive criticism considered positive or negative?

Originally, the word “criticism” had a neutral meaning — it simply described the process of making a judgment. However, the word has evolved to sometimes have negative connotations, such as when students criticize the amount of homework they receive.

Thus, if students perceive educator feedback as criticism, they may disengage from the feedback process and miss an opportunity for improvement.

To improve students’ perception of feedback, educators can reframe their advice using the constructive criticism examples featured below. These strategies facilitate educators in giving supportive, meaningful feedback that guides students toward achieving learning goals and outcomes.

Constructive criticism examples: ways to give better feedback to students

Here are some examples of ways you can give constructive criticism to students to help them reach their learning goals.

Use constructive criticism to identify students’ specific points for improvement

Educators can use constructive criticism to pinpoint specific areas for students to target and guide them on how to improve. This is more helpful than vague praise, such as “Well done!” or general comments such as “Improve this section.”

Vague praise could leave students unaware of what exactly they have done correctly or the specific areas they need to improve, resulting in missed learning opportunities.

How to implement this: Use the START (Situation, Task, Action, Result, and Transform) framework

The START framework helps educators structure constructive criticism to give students a clear understanding of their next steps in learning — and how to tackle them.
The educator reminds the student of the situation and/or task , identifies the student’s specific action within it, and describes the resulting outcome. This helps pinpoint the student’s exact area for development.
Then, the educator explains strategies that will enable the student to transform the outcome, making the process constructive.

On Kialo Edu, you can give targeted feedback on every claim that students create, so students understand exactly what they need to improve.

Use constructive criticism to depersonalize feedback to students

Educators can use constructive criticism to emphasize feedback that targets specific work, learning, or behavior, rather than the student personally. This can promote positive and respectful feedback conversations with students, particularly those who sometimes perceive educator feedback as devastating personal criticism.

How to implement this: Use the Third Point method

In the Third Point method, two people in the feedback conversation, in this case the educator and student, physically focus their attention on the third point. This should be a tangible item like the student’s work, an assessment rubric, or a behavior report.
Focusing on the third point limits eye contact between the educator and student, which reduces their emotional involvement in the feedback process.
The student is thus less likely to take the feedback personally and will be more receptive to acting on the educator’s advice.

If you’ve used a Kialo discussion as an activity with your students, consider using its argument map as a tangible third point to focus on when depersonalizing constructive criticism conversations with students.

Use constructive criticism as part of reflective dialogue with students

Educators can use reflective dialogue to encourage students to positively engage with constructive criticism. In these reflective dialogues, students have a space to share their perspectives on learning, with educators adjusting feedback based on the students’ viewpoints. This combats the negativity that students sometimes feel when they view feedback as an imposition that doesn’t consider their opinion.

How to implement this: Use the GROW (Goals, Reality, Options, and Will) framework

Educators can use The GROW framework to structure constructive criticism during reflective dialogues.
The educator and student begin by reviewing the learning goal and exploring the student’s current reality . Here, the student shares their perspective.
The process becomes constructive as the educator and student generate options to help the student achieve the goal.
They use these options to finalize the student’s next steps and agree on the support the educator will provide.

Use constructive criticism to immediately address students’ misconceptions

Educators can use constructive criticism when teaching content to promptly address students’ learning misconceptions. Students can then take immediate action to improve their learning. This can prevent students from repeating mistakes and embedding misconceptions throughout their work.

How to implement this: Use the Feedforward method

With the Feedforward method, the educator plays a dynamic role, offering on-the-spot constructive criticism to students during lessons.
The educator circulates among the class or target group, identifying points for students to address, providing them with constructive support, and monitoring their improvements.
By the end of the session, students have made progress — and teachers have a bank of evidence ideal for formative assessment.

During a Kialo discussion, you can set feedback for students to appear in real-time for students to consider and implement as they work through their claims.

Train students to use constructive criticism for peer feedback

Training students to give constructive criticism develops their understanding of the feedback process to help each other progress. Moreover, it allows students a perspective into the educator feedback process, which may improve students’ outlook on engaging with the feedback they receive.

How do to implement this: Regularly use peer-to-peer feedback for assignments

Educators can focus students’ feedback to each other by providing a clear list of success criteria for all tasks.
You can also give students sentence starters (“Have you considered…?” or “One way you could improve this is…”) to help frame their constructive criticism.
Following these preparations, students then work in pairs to provide reciprocal constructive criticism and address issues collaboratively.
During peer conversations, educators monitor and offer support to develop students’ insight into the educator feedback process.

On Kialo Edu, students can give constructive criticism to their peers by leaving comments on claims. Teachers can also add their own comments to support this process, modeling how to leave appropriate constructive criticism.

We hope that our constructive criticism examples for students — and the time-saving tools in Kialo discussions — help you to maximize the benefits of supportive, meaningful feedback in your classroom.

And we practice what we preach here at Kialo Edu, so we’d love to hear your feedback! Head to our Topic Library to start a discussion with your students, and test out our time-saving teacher tools. Send your thoughts to [email protected] , or post them on any of our social media channels.

Want to try Kialo Edu with your class?

Sign up for free and use Kialo Edu to have thoughtful classroom discussions and train students’ argumentation and critical thinking skills.

How to Give Feedback

Why is feedback important?

Feedback has been known to be an important part of the learning process. Especially when coupled with deliberate practice, feedback can help students spend their time mastering aspects that they need to focus on most rather than practicing what they already know. Effective feedback works as a map to guide students by letting them know where they are now and what to work on in order to get to their goal. Without good feedback, students may carry misconceptions that they did not even realize they had while learning the material and walk aimlessly towards a goal without being sure how they can get there.

What constitutes effective feedback?

Effective feedback is: 1) targeted, 2) communicates progress, 3) timely, and 4) gives students the opportunity to practice and implement the feedback received. In a broader sense, these aspects relate to thinking about where the student is going, how the student is doing now, and what the next step is.

Targeted feedback

When giving feedback, it is important to make sure that it is specific and linked to clearly articulated goals or learning outcomes. Targeted feedback gives students an idea of what they did well and how they can improve in relation to the learning criteria stated in the course. Connecting feedback to specific and achievable goals helps provide students with an understanding of desired outcomes and sub goals as well. Additionally, goals should not be too challenging or too easy; goals that are too challenging can discourage students and make them feel unable to succeed, while goals that are too easy may not appropriately push students to improve and also provide them with unrealistic expectations of success.

Targeted feedback also includes prioritizing feedback – in other words, it is important not to overwhelm students with too many comments. Research has shown that even minimal feedback on students’ writing can lead to an improved second draft, especially in the early stages, because it lets students know if they are on the right track and whether readers understand their message. To implement this, you may consider setting up milestones in order to break up a class project or paper and provide feedback to students along the way.

Communicates progress

Feedback showing how far a student has come can help by providing students with information on how much they have improved and where they should direct more attention to. Studies have shown that formative, process-oriented feedback that is focused on accomplishments is more effective than summative feedback, such as letter grades, and also leads to greater interest in the class material. One strategy to consider may be providing specific comments on student work without a letter or number grade; students tend to fixate on such summative feedback, and studies have shown that providing both feedback and a grade actually negates the benefits of the given feedback.

Opportunity to practice

Simply giving targeted feedback will not be effective if students are not also given the chance to practice and put this feedback into place. Targeted feedback helps direct students’ efforts to focus on how they should move forward for the future, but practice allows students to actually learn from feedback by applying it. Otherwise, there is the potential for students to not actually digest the feedback even if they willingly received it. Some ways to link practice with targeted feedback are to have a series of related assignments where students are asked to incorporate feedback into each subsequent assignment, or create sub-goals within projects where students receive feedback on rough drafts along the way and are specifically given a goal to address the feedback in final drafts. Regardless of the nature of the assignment, the key part is that students be given the opportunity to implement the feedback they are given in related class assignments.

Timing of feedback

It is also important that feedback be timely. Generally, immediate feedback and more frequent feedback is often best so that students are on track for their goals, but timely feedback may not necessarily be given right away. The timing of feedback largely depends on the learning goals – immediate feedback is better when students are learning new knowledge, but slightly delayed feedback can actually be helpful when students are applying learned knowledge. In particular, if the learning goal of an assignment is for students to be able to not only master a skill but also recognize their own errors, then delayed feedback would be the most appropriate because it allows students to think about their mistakes and have the chance to catch their errors rather than relying on feedback to tell them.

For STEM classes, immediate feedback may include in-class concept questions where students can know right away whether they have understood the new material that they just learned, while delayed feedback would include a problem set where they have to apply these learned concepts and wait before receiving feedback. For non-STEM classes, immediate feedback may include an in-class discussion, where students can hear feedback and thoughts on their ideas in real time, while an example of delayed feedback would be an essay, where students have to apply what they have learned in class to their writing and do not receive feedback on their submission right away.

Strategies to implement feedback in the classroom

As an instructor, you may not always have the time to provide feedback the way you would like to. The following strategies offer some suggestions for how you can still efficiently provide students with useful feedback.

Look for common errors among the class

You may notice common errors or misconceptions among the class while grading exams, or realize that many students ask a similar question at office hours. If you take note of these common mistakes, you can then address them to the class as a whole. This can have the added benefit of making students feel less alone, as some may not realize that the mistake they made is a common one among their peers.

Prioritize feedback

As mentioned earlier, it can be helpful even to provide minimal feedback on a rough draft to steer students in the right direction. Often, it might not be necessary to provide feedback on all aspects of an assignment and doing so may actually overwhelm students with feedback. Instead, think about what would be most important to provide feedback on at this time – you may consider providing feedback on one area at a time, such as one step of crafting an argument or one step of solving a problem. Be sure to communicate with students which areas you did/did not provide feedback on.

Incorporate real-time group feedback.

Many feedback strategies appear more feasible for small classes, but this method is particularly useful in large lecture classes. Clicker questions are a common example of real time group feedback. It can be particularly difficult in larger classes to gain a good picture of student comprehension, so real-time feedback through clicker questions and polls can allow you to check in with the class. For instance, if you notice there are a large proportion of incorrect answers, you can think about how to present the material in a different way or have students discuss the problem together before re-polling. Other options for real-time group feedback include external polling apps – the most commonly used polling apps on campus are PollEverywhere , Socrative , and Sli.do .

Utilize peer feedback

It may not be logistically feasible for you to provide feedback to your students as often as you wish. Consider what opportunities for peer feedback may exist in your subject. For example, students could provide each other with immediate, informal feedback in-class using techniques such as “Think-Pair” where each student has had time to first grapple with a concept or a problem individually and then is asked to explain the concept or problem solving approach to each other. Using peer feedback allows students to learn from each other while also preventing you from getting overwhelmed with constantly having to provide feedback as the instructor. Peer feedback can be just as valuable as instructor feedback when students are clear on the purpose of peer feedback and how they can effectively engage in it. One way to create successful peer feedback, particularly for more substantial assignments, is to provide students with a rubric and an example that is evaluated based on the rubric. This makes it clear to students what they should be looking for when conducting peer feedback, and what constitutes a successful or unsuccessful end result.

Create opportunities for students to reflect on feedback

By reflecting on how they will implement the feedback they have received, students are able to actively interact with the feedback and connect it to their work. For example, if students have a class project divided into milestones, you may ask students to write a few sentences about how they used the comments they received and how it impacted the subsequent assignment.

Ambrose, Susan A., Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman (2010). “What kinds of practice and feedback enhance learning?” In How Learning Works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching (pp. 121–152). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Benassi, V. A., Overson, C. E., & Hakala, C. M. (2014). Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site: http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/ index.php

Goodwin, Bryan and Miller, Kirsten (2012). “Good Feedback is Targeted, Specific, Timely”. Educational Leadership: Feedback for Learning , Vol. 70, No. 1.

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Feedback for Learning

Feedback and revision are important parts of any learning experience. From in-class activities and assignments, to peer-reviewed manuscripts, feedback is essential for growth and learning. And yet, if students don’t reflect on or apply notes or comments, it can sometimes feel like feedback doesn’t matter all that much. Giving feedback can feel like an arduous process, and when it goes unused on student assignments, it can leave instructors feeling frustrated. This resource offers strategies to make giving feedback easier and more effective. While there are specific technologies (discussed below) that can help facilitate feedback in an online or hybrid/HyFlex learning environment, the strategies presented here are applicable to any kind of course (e.g.: large lecture, seminar) and across any modality (e.g.: synchronous, asynchronous, fully online, hybrid, or in-person).

Reflecting on Your Feedback Practices

Resources & References

The CTL is here to help!

Seeking additional support with enhancing your feedback practices? Email [email protected] to schedule a 1-1 consultation. For support with any of the Columbia tools discussed below, email [email protected] or join our virtual office hours .

Interested in inviting the CTL to facilitate a session on this topic for your school, department, or program? Visit our Workshops To Go page for more information.

Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2021). Feedback for Learning. Columbia University. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/feedback-for-learning/

Feedback for Learning: What and Why

What is feedback and why does it matter .

Broadly defined, feedback is “information given to students about their performance that guides future behavior” (Ambrose et al., 2010, p. 125). Feedback can help set a path for students, directing their attention to areas for growth and improvement, and connecting them with future learning opportunities. At the same time, there is an evaluative component to feedback, regardless of whether it is given with a grade. Effective feedback tells students “ what they are or are not understanding, where their performance is going well or poorly, and how they should direct their subsequent efforts” (Ambrose et al., 2010, p. 137). In this way, feedback is essential to students’ learning and growth.

It is not enough for students to receive feedback. They also need explicit opportunities to implement and practice with the feedback received. In their How Learning Works: Seven Research-based Principles for Smart Teaching , Ambrose et al. (2010) underscore the importance of feedback, coupled with opportunities for practice: “Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback are critical to learning ” (p. 125, emphasis in original). They further highlight the interconnection of feedback, practice, and performance in relation to overarching course goals.

Types of Feedback

There is no one size fits all for feedback. While there are common characteristics of effective feedback (discussed further in the following section), the form it takes will change across contexts. It can also come at different points of time during an assignment. You might offer students backward-looking feedback on a final product, after a student has “done” something; this type of feedback is usually given alongside an assignment grade. Or, you might offer forward-looking feedback, providing students advice and suggestions while the work is still in progress. It can be helpful for students to receive both kinds of feedback, with opportunities for implementation throughout. Related, the kinds of questions or prompts you use in your feedback will vary based on the kinds of responses and revisions you’re trying to solicit from students. Types of feedback may include: corrective, epistemic, suggestive, and epistemic + suggestive (Leibold and Schwarz, 2015).

These particular types of feedback are not exclusive of each other. It’s very common that the feedback you give will have elements of some, if not all, of these four types. What type you use at what point will depend on the goals of the assignment, as well as the goal of the feedback and the kinds of revision and responses you are trying to solicit.

Characteristics of Effective Feedback

Effective feedback is:

Targeted and Concise: Too much feedback can be overwhelming; it can be difficult to know where to begin revising and where to prioritize one’s efforts. Use feedback to direct students’ attention to the main areas where they are likely to make progress; identify 2-3 main areas for improvement and growth.
Focused: To help prioritize the main areas you identify, align your feedback with the goals of the assignment. You might also consider what other opportunities students have had or will have to practice these skills.
Action-Oriented: Offer feedback that guides students through the revision process. Be direct and point to specific areas within the student’s work, offering suggestions for revision to help direct their efforts.
Timely: Feedback is most useful when there is time to implement and learn from it. Offer frequent feedback opportunities ahead of a final due date (forward-looking feedback), allowing students to engage with your feedback and use it throughout their revision process. These opportunities for practice will help students develop further mastery of course material.

Strategies for Giving Effective Feedback

This section offers strategies for putting the characteristics of effective feedback into action. These strategies are applicable across class types (e.g.: large lecture, seminar) and modalities (e.g.: in-person, fully online, hybrid/HyFlex).

Create a culture of feedback

Establish a respectful and positive learning climate where feedback is normalized and valued. This includes helping students see the value of feedback to their learning, and acknowledging the role that mistakes, practice, and revision play in learning. Offer students frequent opportunities to receive feedback on their work in the course. Likewise, offer frequent opportunities for students to give f eedback on the course. This reciprocal feedback process will help to underscore the importance and value of feedback, further normalizing the process. For support on collecting student feedback, see the CTL’s Early and Mid-Semester Student Feedback resource.

Partner with your students

As McKeachie writes in McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers (2011) , “Effective feedback is a partnership; it requires actions by the student as well as the teacher” (p. 108). It’s not enough for you to just give feedback; students need to be involved throughout the process. You might engage students in a meta discussion, soliciting feedback about feedback. Engage students in conversations about what makes feedback most useful, its purpose and value to learning, and stress the importance of implementation.

You might also consider the role of peer review in the feedback process. While peer review should not replace instructor feedback, you can take into consideration the kinds of feedback students will have already received as you are reviewing their work. This can be particularly helpful for larger classes where multiple rounds of feedback from the instructor and/or TAs is not possible. For support on engaging students in peer review, see the CTL’s Peer Review: Intentional Design for Any Course Context resource.

Align your feedback with the learning objectives

When giving feedback, be sure that your comments and suggestions align with overall course objectives, as well as the goals of the assignment. One helpful way to be sure your feedback aligns with learning objectives is to have a rubric. A rubric is an assessment tool that “articulates the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria or what counts, and describing levels of quality” (Malini Reddy & Andrade, 2010, p. 435). Rubrics help make the goals and purpose of the assignment explicit to students, while also helping you save time when giving feedback. They are typically composed of three sections: evaluation criteria (e.g.: assignment learning objectives, what students are being assessed on); assessment values (e.g.: “excellent, good, and poor,” letter grades, or a scale of 1-5, etc.); and a description of each assessment value (e.g.: a “B” assignment does this…). If using rubrics, you might consider co-constructing the rubric with your students based on the assignment prompt and goals. This can help students take more ownership of their learning, as well as provide further clarification of your expectations for the assignment.

Keep your feedback focused and simple

Keep in mind the key skills or competencies you hope students will practice and master in the particular assignment, and use those to guide your feedback. As John Bean writes in Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (2011), “Because your purpose is to stimulate meaningful revision, your best strategy is to limit your commentary to a few problems that you want the student to tackle when preparing the next draft. It thus helps to establish a hierarchy of concerns, descending from higher-order issues (ideas, organization, development, and overall clarity) to lower-order issues (sentence correctness, style, mechanics, spelling, and so forth)” (p. 322). When considering your hierarchy of concerns, keep in mind the stage of the student’s draft: early drafts benefit more from higher-order feedback, as the specifics of the assignment may shift and change as the student continues drafting and revising. A later draft, closer to being “finished,” may benefit from lower-order concerns focusing on style and mechanics.

Consider the timing of your feedback

Be sure to offer multiple opportunities for feedback throughout the course; this frequency will also help support the culture of feedback discussed above. It’s also important that you consider when students will receive feedback from you, and what they will do with it; remember that, “if students are to learn from feedback, they must have opportunities to construct their own meaning from the received message: they must do something with it, analyze it, ask questions about it, discuss it with others and connect it with prior knowledge” (Nicol et al., 2014, p. 103). Give students time to implement your feedback whether to revise their work or apply it to future assignments.

Change up your mode of delivery

While the focus of feedback shifts depending on the assignment goals and your course context, you might also consider changing up the mode of your feedback delivery. Written comments, whether throughout the text or summarized at the end of the assignment, are valuable to students’ learning, but they are not the only way to deliver effective feedback:

Audio/video feedback: To help save yourself time, and to humanize your feedback, consider using audio or visual feedback (Gannon, 2017; Cavanaugh and Song, 2014). Most instructors can talk through their ideas quicker than they can handwrite or type them, making audio feedback a timesaver. Audio feedback allows students to hear your tone and intended delivery. Audio/video feedback is particularly useful for fully online asynchronous courses, as it allows students an opportunity to connect with you, the instructor, on a more personal level than typed comments might provide .

1-1 meetings: Consider using your office hours or other scheduled meetings to talk with students 1-1 about their work. You might ask students to explain or paraphrase the feedback they received. Prompts can include: 1) What was the feedback?; 2) What did you learn from my feedback?; 3) Based on the feedback, how will you improve your work?

Small group meetings : If you have a larger class, you might consider creating feedback groups where students will have read each other’s work and peers can share their feedback alongside you in a small group synchronous meeting. (This method can work regardless of the assignment being a group project or an individual assignment.) If teaching a fully online or hybrid/HyFlex course, these meetings can be facilitated in a dedicated Zoom meeting, or during class time using Zoom breakout rooms.

Facilitating Feedback with Columbia-Supported Technologies

While there is no shortage of technologies to help facilitate effective feedback, as this Chronicle of Higher Education Advice Guide highlights, it’s recommended that you work with tools supported by Columbia. These tools come with the added benefit of University support, as well as a higher likelihood of student familiarity. The technology you choose should align with the goals of the assignment and feedback; remember, keep it simple. While these technologies can help facilitate feedback for face-to-face courses, they are particularly useful for those teaching in a fully online or hybrid/HyFlex modality.

For further support with setting up one of these platforms and making it work for your course context, please contact the Learning Designer liaison for your school to schedule a consultation, or drop in to our CTL Support Office Hours via Zoom.

CourseWorks (Canvas)

CourseWorks offers a number of built-in features that can help facilitate effective feedback, furthering your students’ growth and learning, and helping to save you time in the process. Note: some of these features require initial enabling on your CourseWorks page. For help setting up your CourseWorks page, and further information about CourseWorks features, visit the CTL’s Knowledge Base . The CTL also offers two self-paced courses: Intro to CourseWorks (Canvas) Online and Assessment and Grading in CourseWorks (Canvas) Online , as well as live workshops for Teaching Online with CourseWorks .

Gradebook Comments

If using the CourseWorks Gradebook, you can attach summative feedback comments for your students; this is especially helpful when offering backward-looking feedback on assignments already submitted. For help on adding general Gradebook comments, see the Canvas Help Documentation: How do I leave comments for students in the Gradebook? .

Quiz Tool Feedback

If you are using the CourseWorks quiz tool, you generate automated feedback for correct and/or incorrect responses. For correct responses, you might consider expanding upon the response, making connections across course materials. For an incorrect response, you might direct the student’s attention to particular course materials (e.g.: video, chapter in a textbook, etc.). For help with generating automated feedback in quizzes, see the Canvas Help Documentation: What options can I set in a quiz? .

As previously discussed, rubrics can be a great way to both align feedback with the goals of an assignment, and save time while giving feedback. You can create rubrics for your assignments within CourseWorks to further support this process. It is also possible to copy over and edit rubrics across assignments, which is particularly helpful when reviewing different drafts or components of the same assignment. For further support on creating and using rubrics in CourseWorks, see the Canvas Help Documentation: How do I add a rubric to an assignment? .

SpeedGrader

Within SpeedGrader , there are a number of ways to provide students with feedback. One key benefit of SpeedGrader is that it allows instructors to view, grade, and comment on student work without the need to download documents, which can greatly reduce the time needed to grade student work. Using the DocViewer , you can annotate within a student’s assignment using a range of commenting styles, including: in-text highlights and other edits, marginal comments, summative comments on large areas of an assignment, handwritten or drawing tools, and more. Comments can also be made anonymously.

You can also offer students holistic assignment comments ; these particular comments are not specific to any one part of the assignment, but rather, appear as a summary comment on the project as a whole. There are a number of options for the mode of these comments, including: a brief text comment, an attachment (e.g.: a Word doc or PDF), or an audio/video comment. There is also a space for students to leave a message in response to your feedback, which can encourage them to more deeply engage with, and reflect upon, your feedback. For more detailed instructions on using the different tools, please see the Canvas Help Documentation: How do I add annotated comments in student submissions?

Gradescope

Although Gradescope is more commonly used as an assessment and grading tool, there are a few features to support giving feedback; it is particularly useful when providing feedback on handwritten assignments submitted digitally, or on those assignments using particular software (e.g.: LaTex, other coding and programming languages, etc.). In Gradescope, you can provide comments and feedback using LaTex , making it easier to give feedback on assignments using mathematical equations or formulas. Gradescope also allows for in-text feedback and commenting using a digital pen or textbox ; this allows for feedback on hand-written assignments submitted digitally. For more Gradescope support, see the CTL’s Creating Assignments and Grading Online with Gradescope resource.

While Panopto is typically used for recording course videos and lectures, it can also be helpful for providing students with video walkthrough feedback of their assignments. Using Panopto, you can screencast your student’s assignment while also recording your audio feedback. This can help humanize your feedback, while also simulating a 1-1 conference or meeting with the student. An added benefit of using Panopto is that you can edit the recording before sharing it with your student (e.g.: removing pauses, rephrasing comments, etc.). For further support on getting started and using Panopto, see the CTL’s Teaching with Panopto resource.

Like Panopto, you can also use Zoom to record a feedback walkthrough. The one major difference is that Zoom recordings are done in a single take; there is no opportunity to edit the recording. Zoom is also great for meeting with students either 1-1 or in small groups. If using synchronous class time for small group feedback sessions, you can “circulate” between breakout rooms to check in with students and offer feedback. For further Zoom support, see the CTL’s Teaching with Zoom resource, or visit CUIT’s Zoom support page .

Reflecting back, can you tell if your past feedback practices were effective? Did your students understand and use the feedback you gave? Did their work improve as a result of the feedback given? What small changes to your feedback practices would benefit you and your students?

With an upcoming assignment in mind, reflect on the following questions to guide your future feedback practices:

How can you make your feedback targeted and concise? Consider the biggest challenge to the student’s success in the assignment.
What will be the focus of your feedback? Focus on the most important skills or competencies you hope students will gain from the assignment.
What type of feedback will you give (corrective, epistemic, suggestive, epistemic and suggestive, some other combination)? Connect the type of feedback you offer to the goals of the feedback and revision.
How much time will students have to implement your feedback and revise? If students only receive feedback on the final products (with or without a grade), how will you help them use this feedback on future assignments?
How can the student implement your feedback? Suggest places for students to begin.
When will students receive feedback? What would be most useful to help students implement your feedback and further practice these skills?
What will be the mode of delivery for the feedback? What technologies will you use?

Resources & References

Ctl resources .

Creating Assignments and Grading Online with Gradescope

Peer Review: Intentional Design for Any Course Context

Ambrose, S.A., Bridges, M.W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M.C., & Norman, M.K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching . Jossey-Bass.

Bean, J. (2011). Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom, 2nd ed. Jossey-Bass.

Cavanaugh, A.J. & Song, L. (2014). Audio feedback versus written feedback: Instructors’ and students’ perspectives . MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10 (1), 122-138.

Desrochers, C. G., Zell, D., & Torosyan, R. Provided meaningful feedback on students’ academic performance . The IDEA Center.

Fiock, H. & Garcia, H. (2019, November 11). How to give your students better feedback with technology advice guide . Chronicle of Higher Education.

Gannon, K. (2017, November 26). How to escape grading jail . Chronicle of Higher Education.

Leibold, N. & Schwarz, L. M. (2015). The art of giving online feedback . Journal of Effective Teaching. 15 (1), 34-46.

Malini Reddy, Y. & Andrade, H. (2010). A review of rubric use in higher education . Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 35 (4), 435-448.

McKeachie W.J. (2011). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers, 13th ed. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Nicol, D., Thomson, A., & Breslin, C. (2014). Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: A peer review perspective . Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education , 39 (1), 102-122.

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Constructive feedback

Ivan Andreev

Demand Generation & Capture Strategist, Valamis

December 19, 2021 · updated April 3, 2024

14 minute read

December 19, 2021

The aim of this article is to provide you with a clear idea of what constructive feedback is and how it fits into the workplace.

Constructive feedback is a useful tool that managers and employees can engage in to improve the standard of work. There is a right way to give good constructive feedback which you will learn by the end of this page.

What is constructive feedback?

30 constructive feedback examples, how to give constructive feedback, 10 tips to help your feedback make a positive impact.

By engaging your employees with constructive feedback you create an atmosphere that nurtures support and growth.

Proper feedback has a knock-on effect on loyalty, work ethic , performance, and growth for individuals and teams.

Feedback can be given in multiple ways so take a look at our guide “ types of feedback .” You can learn how to take negative feedback and turn it into engaging positive feedforward.

Employees respond better to constructive and positive feedback rather than negative feedback which can make them feel unappreciated and under-supported.

Constructive feedback is the type of feedback aimed at achieving a positive outcome by providing someone with comments, advice, or suggestions that are useful for their work or their future.

The outcome can be faster processes, improving behaviors, identifying weaknesses, or providing new perspectives.

The feedback can be given in different forms; both praise and criticism can play a role in constructive feedback.

Criticism can also be delivered constructively – constructive criticism . Check out our article to learn more about it.

Good constructive feedback should focus on the work rather than being a personal negative attack against an individual.

Let’s take a look at how praise and criticism work:

Praise is where you show appreciation to your employees for the work they have done.

If an employee has done exemplary work or gone above and beyond to help someone, a thank you and congratulations can go a long way.

By acknowledging their work and showing your appreciation you can help to reinforce these positive behaviors.

Additionally, you can use praise as part of a larger feedback session. By highlighting the things an employee does well your message carries extra weight.

Your employees feel appreciated and any advice shared as part of the feedback will feel positive.

Criticism is harder to navigate as if it is handled poorly it can lead to an uncomfortable working environment .

When critiquing an employee’s work it is imperative to try and make it not personal.

Criticism plays an important role in helping people avoid negative behaviors and grow from their mistakes.

Proper criticism should be sincere and caring whilst also containing a level of importance.

Do not let your emotions get the better of you as criticism levied while you are angry, disappointed, or frustrated may lose its message.

The outcome of criticism should still be positive and contribute to an employee’s growth.

Career development plan template

This template helps employees and bosses plan together for career growth: set goals, assess skills, and make a plan.

Let’s take a look at some good constructive feedback examples.

Each topic is divided into three sections, one which displays appropriate positive feedback (praise), appropriate negative feedback (criticism) and inappropriate negative feedback.

Appropriate types are designed to encourage a positive outcome in the future.

1. Feedback about communication skills

Appropriate positive example.

“Thank you for keeping me informed of the progress on the project for XYZ. It’s allowed me to keep my superiors up-to-date with our department. Everyone is excited to see the project enter the final phase. I’m impressed by your dedication to the team and I look forward to seeing more from you!”

Appropriate negative example

“You haven’t been keeping me well-informed about your project. I don’t know what’s going on and I’d like to see more communication from you. Can we arrange to have a 10-minute call every Friday with progress updates please?”

Inappropriate negative example

“Did no one teach you how to communicate? The team needs to know what’s going on. This is completely unprofessional.”

2. Feedback about work ethic

“I am so impressed with the effort you gave this project. Your commitment to the client and our department is admirable. We were able to sign off on the project ahead of schedule all thanks to you!”

“Thank you for all the hard work you put into this project. Unfortunately, the deadline was missed but I can see the solid effort you gave us. In the future please come to me earlier if you feel a deadline is going to be missed, we can pull in support to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

“You missed this deadline which has affected our relationship with the client. This reflects poorly on you and the company.”

3. Feedback about leadership

“Seeing you step up and take control of a team has demonstrated your brilliant talent and people skills. Keep it up and you’ll be making a name for yourself here.”

“I’ve noticed that you’re not forthcoming when there are opportunities to lead a project. I appreciate all the work you do and I’d love to see you take on a challenge please let me know if there is anything I can to get you there.”

“If you’re not going to take these opportunities then why are you even here?”

4. Feedback about flexibility

“Thank you for staying late recently, the work has really piled up and we’re really lucky to have a dedicated person like you on the team to help us reach the deadlines.”

“The deadlines are fast approaching and I’ve noticed you haven’t picked up any extra hours to help out. I would like to see a little more flexibility from you to help us get the project done before the deadlines.”

“You can’t just leave when there is work to be done. Your colleagues are staying behind to help so why aren’t you? You need to be doing your bit.”

5. Feedback about creativity

“You are very innovative with the way you work. The creative solutions you have shared with the team are invaluable and will save the company time and money in the future.”

“I’ve noticed that you’ve been getting stuck on tasks recently. Don’t be afraid to get creative with ideas to help you get the world done.”

“There are rules set out for a reason and you should be following them. You aren’t paid to think, you’re paid to work so keep your ideas to yourself.”

6. Feedback about attention to details

“You have such a keen eye for detail. Thanks to your ability to spot errors and resolve them quickly I have been able to free up another member of the team for a new project.”

“I’ve noticed a pattern starting to emerge with your work recently, small errors are slipping through. I know that sometimes this happens so I just wanted to bring it to your attention so we can avoid them in the future. I’ve created a short checklist to go over before you submit your next few projects.”

“You need to start paying more attention to your work. You can’t keep submitting work that falls below the standards we expect of you.”

7. Feedback about punctuality

“I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for always being here on time. It’s really beneficial to have you hear for these early meetings.”

“I’ve noticed that you’ve been coming into the office late this week. The morning meetings are vitally important and I’d like to see you at more of them. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to support you and get you through the doors a little earlier.”

“Your tardiness is unacceptable and it makes everyone look bad. Show up on time or we will have to take disciplinary action.”

8. Feedback about productivity

“I just wanted to let you know that your hard work has not gone unnoticed. Thank you for the extra effort you have been putting in recently. You are a testament to the department and this company.”

“It’s been noted that your productivity has suffered in recent weeks. I’d like to see you back up to your previous levels and if there is anything the company can do to help please let me know. We’ll schedule a meeting a week from now to check on your progress.”

“You’re not working hard enough anymore. You need to get back up to speed with everyone else as soon as possible.”

9. Feedback about attitude and rudeness

“Thank you for being such a positive spirit around the office. Your ability to lighten the mood and keep things upbeat even against tight deadlines has such a positive effect on your colleagues. The environment would not be the same without you!”

“We’ve noticed that your attitude in the office has turned quite negative recently. This sort of thing multiples quite quickly in an office and starts to affect everyone. If there is something that I can do to help please let me know. It’s a shame to see you like this and I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we’re here to help”

“Your poor attitude is making everyone feel uncomfortable. You are toxic, unmotivated, and you act like you don’t want to be here.”

10. Feedback on problem-solving

“Excellent work on the project. That was a really tricky one but you were able to dig deep and figure it out. I appreciate that you were able to figure out the problems on your own without pulling other team members in to help. We’re so busy at the moment it’s hard to spare the manpower. Thank you!’

“You’re an incredibly resourceful and intuitive person so next time I’d like to see you work on the issues a little longer before asking for help. Tony has fallen behind in his work now. I’m confident if you’d thought about it a little longer you would have cracked. Do you think you would have got there?”

“Stop giving up on tasks and making someone else do it. Other people are busy and can’t just stop what they are doing to do your tasks for you. If you’re stuck on something – figure it out!”

When you decide it’s time to arrange a feedback session, or you have a performance appraisal , with an employee there are a few things to consider to really get this right.

A well-thought-out feedback session can have everyone walking away feeling positive and like they have achieved something.

1. Choose the right time and place for feedback

The first thing you want to consider is the location. Small bits of praise and appreciation can be shared among the wider team. On the other hand, criticism that is shared in front of your employee’s peers will be shameful and embarrassing.

Criticism is much better delivered in a one-to-one meeting.

You should consider the timing of the meeting. It is best to give feedback as soon as possible while the reference points are still clear.

Feedback is less constructive the longer you wait to arrange the meeting. As long as you feel like you can provide constructive feedback, then the sooner the better.

2. Set the right tone for the meeting

The next thing to consider is the manner in which you give the feedback.

If you want to arrange a meeting to provide negative feedback try not to do this while tensions are running high. If you feel yourself being too angry and unable to censor yourself properly it may be best to wait until you can have the conversation in a more neutral tone.

At the same time the tone should be professional and you should sound confident.

For positive constructive feedback try to use an inspiring and friendly tone rather than casual and funny as it might decrease the effectiveness of your message.

3. Emotional intelligence is key

Further to the previous point emotions can run high during feedback sessions, particularly where criticism is concerned. Anger can cause you to attack the recipient unfairly and this could have consequences. It won’t make you or the recipient feel better and could bleed into the work environment.

Consider the other person as well, how is the feedback going to affect them? How can you present the information in a way that’s helpful to them?

4. Define what is the purpose of the feedback

When you arrange a meeting with your employee the purpose of that meeting should be clearly defined. You should also share why you feel this is an important meeting to have.

As an example if the purpose of the feedback is to improve employee behaviour or performance, then you should have a clear understanding of what you need to discuss and what solutions you can offer.

If you are unclear of the specifics it will be harder to provide constructive feedback.

5. Content of the feedback

You should be able to clearly identify the areas of discussion. Whether it is praising something positive or criticism about areas of improvement. The content should be focused on the work rather than the individual.

If there is a specific action or situation that needs to be addressed then you can share how exactly it is making you and their colleagues feel.

6. Don’t skirt around the issue

It may not be appropriate to slide your feedback in between more positive conversations. It could lead to your message being diluted or misunderstood. Sometimes will be advantageous for a boss to get straight to the point.

7. Encourage a dialogue

Employees should be given the opportunity to add to the dialogue, this should not be a one-way conversation. Once you have given the purpose, observations, details of situations, and reactions then offer the employee a chance to speak.

This is so important as it allows you to hear about the event in question from a new perspective.

8. Be respectful and stay on point

Since you’re dealing with another person you’ve got to remain respectful during the meeting. Keep on point and avoid using language that would cause the recipient to go defensive.

It would be better to lead with phrases like ‘I’m worried about,’ ‘I’ve observed behaviors’ and ‘I’ve become aware of’ rather than phrases that start with ‘you such as ‘you’re doing things wrong.’

Keep to the point and don’t make the meeting too personal.

9. Give suggestions for improvements

The most important part of the feedback should be working with the employee about improvements. You can share what you would like to see in the future such as improvements to working speed, accuracy, relationships with colleagues, or whatever the situation is.

It may be worth creating an action plan and arranging more meetings in the future to check on performance.

This part of the feedback should be to support the employee in the areas they aren’t performing in and focus on reaching a positive outcome.

10. Recap the most important points

Before you end the meeting it is a good idea to just recap everything you have spoken about. This is a good way to avoid there being any misunderstandings and it provides you with an opportunity to check that the constructive feedback was received and understood.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

“homework feedback is…”: elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback.

$\r\nJennifer Cunha$

1 Departamento de Psicologia Aplicada, Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal
2 Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain

This study explored mathematics teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback focusing on four key aspects: definition, purpose, types, and perceived impact. Forty-seven teachers from elementary and middle schools participated in six focus groups. Data were analyzed using content analysis. To enhance the trustworthiness of findings, classroom observations were used for triangulation of data. Participants conceptualized homework feedback in three directions (i.e., teachers’ feedback provided to students, students’ feedback provided to teachers, and homework self-feedback), being teachers’ monitoring of students’ learning the purpose reported by most teachers. Participants also reported the types of homework feedback more frequently used in class (e.g., checking homework completion, checking homework on the board), and their perceived impact on students. Findings provide valuable information to deepen the understanding of the homework feedback process, which may help develop new avenues for future research.

Introduction

Homework may be defined as tasks assigned by teachers to be completed in non-instructive time ( Cooper, 2001 ), and has proved to enhance students’ academic achievement when endowed with particular characteristics (e.g., short, purposeful, frequent assignments, high quality) (e.g., Dettmers et al., 2010 ; Fernández-Alonso et al., 2015 ; Rosário et al., 2015a ).

In addition, the homework feedback provided by the teacher in class is an important tool to increase the impact of homework on students’ learning and academic achievement (e.g., Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and a crucial aspect of the quality of homework ( Cooper, 2001 ). However, detailed information on elementary and middle school teachers’ perspectives about their practices and on the reasons why teachers choose and use particular types of homework feedback in class is still scarce ( Bang et al., 2009 ; Deslandes, 2009 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). Investigating teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback, particularly in elementary and middle school, may provide new insights into research on homework (e.g., helping further explain previous quantitative results; improving homework feedback measures), as well as into educational practices (e.g., teachers getting training on homework feedback practices).

Teachers’ Role on the Homework Feedback Process

Teachers play an important role in the first phase of the homework process by setting up the objectives of homework assignments and designing tasks, and also in the final phase by implementing classroom follow-up practices ( Cooper, 2001 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2015a , b ). The latter includes, among other practices, homework feedback provided in class: oral or written praise, criticism, written comments (highlighting right and wrong answers), rewards, general review of homework in class, and grading (i.e., teachers giving numerical grades) (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Murphy et al., 1987 ; Corno, 2000 ; Cooper, 2001 ). These homework feedback practices are an important instructional tool for teachers in their teaching process (e.g., helping identify students’ difficulties, errors or misconceptions in homework; approaching the learning contents to accommodate students’ lack of prior knowledge, and redesigning homework to match students’ needs) ( Corno, 2000 ; Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Epstein and Van Voorhis, 2001 ; An and Wu, 2012 ; Bang, 2012 ).

Extant research lacks studies which have focused specifically on each of the above-mentioned types of homework feedback; still, some studies have shed some light on the usage and benefits of the various types of homework feedback. For example, Murphy et al. (1987 , p. 68) found that “class discussion on homework,” and grading and commenting on homework were the practices most frequently used by high school teachers (i.e., English, mathematics, science, and social science) to monitor students’ completion of homework. Focusing on mathematics, Kaur (2011) explored the nature of homework tasks assigned by three 8th grade mathematics teachers (e.g., types of homework, sources of homework tasks), and found that teachers provided feedback on errors by grading assignments, orienting discussions and checking homework on the board when needed. Using the TIMSS 2003 data set, Zhu and Leung (2012) found that a high percentage of 8th grade mathematics teachers reported checking homework completion (85%), providing feedback regularly (i.e., at least “sometimes”, 100%), and discussing homework in class (96%). Nevertheless, none of these studies deeply explored the process of homework feedback.

Students’ Role on the Homework Feedback Process

Students engaging in school tasks with autonomy and responsibility are expected to develop a sense of personal agency for self-managing their behaviors ( Zimmerman, 1989 ). Besides, students who proactively manage their behaviors to attain self-set goals are likely to self-regulate their learning efficiently ( Zimmerman, 1989 ). From a social cognitive perspective, self-regulated learning (SRL) may be defined as an active learning process whereby students self-set goals that direct their cognitions, motivations and behaviors toward those goals ( Zimmerman, 1989 ; Núñez et al., 2013 ; Rosário et al., 2013 ). For example, robust self-efficacy and autonomy, good study skills, commitment to self-set goals, and positive academic attitudes are examples of core elements of academic self-regulation which are necessary to complete homework ( Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 2005 ; Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Schmitz and Perels, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015c ). Regarding the latter, extant literature highlighted self-regulation competencies as essential tools not only to help students complete their homework, but also use the homework feedback delivered with efficacy and responsibility ( Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu and Wu, 2013 ). In fact, students are given homework feedback in class and play an important role deciding what to do next with the information given (e.g., ignoring feedback, self-evaluating their homework performance, using SRL learning strategies).

However, to authors’ knowledge, research has not yet provided information to contribute to understanding how teachers’ homework feedback may promote students’ active role in the homework feedback process. As Corno (2000) reported, teachers are expected to promote students’ capacity to self-evaluate their homework, which would involve addressing important self-regulatory processes. Otherwise, homework feedback may fail to benefit students ( Zhu and Leung, 2012 ).

The Benefits of Homework Feedback

Research has analyzed the effect of specific types of homework feedback provided by teachers on students’ academic performance in a particular subject (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and also the relationships between homework variables (e.g., homework feedback perceived by students, students’ interest, homework management) using non-subject-centered designs ( Xu, 2012 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ). Focusing on the former (i.e., investigating homework feedback in a particular subject), Cardelle and Corno (1981) examined the effect of three types of written homework feedback (i.e., praise, constructive criticism, and constructive criticism plus praise) on college students’ written performance in a second language. Findings showed that students under the constructive criticism plus praise condition achieved a better written performance than their counterparts. Moreover, irrespective of performance levels (i.e., high, middle, and low), participants reported their preference for the constructive criticism plus praise condition. Elawar and Corno (1985) conducted a similar study in mathematics with 6th grade students. Findings showed that students under the constructive criticism plus praise condition showed better achievement and a more positive attitude toward mathematics (e.g., enthusiasm for mathematics) than students of the control group.

The synthesis by Walberg et al. (1985) , and also recent findings by Rosário et al. (2015b) , indicated that specific and individual feedback (i.e., giving written comments or grading homework) positively impacts students’ academic achievement. However, checking homework, grading, and providing individual feedback on homework assignments for every single student in class may not always be feasible because of teacher’s heavy workload (e.g., large numbers of students per class, large numbers of classes to teach, many school meetings per week) ( Cooper, 2001 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). This educational constraint may help explain why checking homework on the board and checking homework orally are among the homework follow-up practices most frequently used by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers ( Rosário et al., 2015b ). These practices are useful to teachers because they allow providing feedback to the whole class (e.g., Brookhart, 2008 ) with less effort than that needed to grade homework or comment on students’ assignments.

Moreover, homework feedback perceived by students was also investigated using non-subject-centered designs (e.g., Xu, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; for exceptions see Tas et al., 2016 ; Xu et al., 2017 ). In general, findings showed some of the benefits of homework feedback for students. For example, Xu’s studies using multilevel designs found that at student level teachers’ homework feedback reported by 8th and 11th grade students was positively associated with students’ interest in homework ( Xu, 2008 ), students’ reasons for doing homework ( Xu, 2010 ), students’ homework management ( Xu and Wu, 2013 ; Xu et al., 2017 ), and students’ homework motivation management ( Xu, 2014 ).

Analyzing students’ homework completion at 8th and 11th grade levels, Xu (2011) found a positive association with teacher homework feedback at both student level and class level. The explained variance was higher at class level. The author concluded that students’ homework completion is related to teachers’ provision of homework feedback ( Xu, 2011 ). This proposition is further substantiated by the findings by Bang (2011) , showing that high school immigrant students perceived teachers’ feedback as a facilitating factor, and the lack of it as an obstacle to homework completion.

More recently, Núñez et al. (2015b) conducted a study with students from various school years (grades 5–12) and concluded that the stronger the teachers’ homework feedback is perceived by students, the greater the amount of homework completed and the better the quality of homework time management (e.g., how well students managed time devoted to homework and avoided distractions). Moreover, these authors found that students’ academic achievement is indirectly and positively associated with homework feedback through students’ homework behaviors (i.e., amount of homework completed) and self-regulation (i.e., quality of homework time management), highlighting the importance of student engagement in the homework process ( Núñez et al., 2015b ). The results of Tas et al. (2016) are consistent with those, showing that middle school students’ homework self-regulation (e.g., orientation goals, learning strategies) mediated the relationship between perceived homework feedback and science achievement.

Bang (2012) reported that teachers acknowledged homework feedback (i.e., grading homework) as an important tool to motivate immigrant students to complete homework. Still, teachers admitted the educational challenge of providing homework feedback because of the time-consuming nature of this strategy. In fact, Rosário et al. (2015b) also reported the difficulties faced by EFL teachers to collect and grade homework on a regular basis. Both studies ( Bang, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ) called for further research on teachers’ perspectives about homework feedback.

In spite of the benefits of homework feedback for students previously reported, the literature has shown that teachers’ support in homework perceived by students decreases from elementary to middle school ( Katz et al., 2010 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ), without specifying in what aspects. Moreover, Kukliansky et al. (2016) recently observed middle school teachers’ behaviors in science classes (3–5 consecutive times) and found that in-class instructional feedback was not always provided, even when demanded by students. However, the authors did not explore the reasons why teachers did not provide feedback in this situation.

In sum, extant research on homework feedback has been conducted on controlled domain-centered contexts (e.g., Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), on single grade levels (e.g., Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu et al., 2017 ), is non-subject-centered (e.g., Xu, 2011 ), or explored specific populations (e.g., teachers of immigrant students, Bang, 2012 ) (cf. Table 1 ), thus further research is needed to deepen the understanding of the homework feedback process.

TABLE 1. Summary of studies that focus homework feedback.

The Present Study

Teachers are an important source of information in the study of the homework feedback process because they actually manage feedback in class ( Cooper, 2001 ). Still, little is known about how mathematics teachers of different school levels perceive homework feedback. Examining elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback is expected to reveal useful information on the homework process, especially teachers’ beliefs and practices concerning homework feedback (cf. Irving et al., 2011 ). The model of teachers’ conceptions of assessment and feedback ( Irving et al., 2011 ; see also Peterson and Irving, 2008 ) provides a relevant theoretical framework for the current research, and guided the research questions, data collection and analysis. This model addresses four key aspects of assessment and feedback: definition, purpose, personal response (i.e., types of assessment and feedback used) and perceived impact. Analyzing these key aspects focused on the homework feedback may provide data to help explain previous findings showing small effect sizes or low explained variances (see Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Xu, 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ), and design future studies, homework policies or school-based interventions.

The following research questions guided the current study:

What are elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback?

How do the four key aspects of the homework feedback relate to each other?

The current study explores the conceptions of teachers of two school levels for two reasons. Firstly, there are some differences as to the educational goals of those school levels; while teachers at elementary school focus on working on the foundations of mathematics (e.g., giving support in the development of number sense), middle school students are expected to learn high-level concepts (e.g., application of proportional relationships). Secondly, homework research found that the characteristics of the homework assigned (e.g., amount of homework assigned, homework purposes) vary for elementary and middle school. For example, Mullis et al. (2004) found that middle school students are expected to do larger amounts of homework than elementary school students. Besides, the purposes of assignments may also vary for both school grades. While homework purposes for middle school may be more related to school contents assessed in tests, homework purposes for elementary school are more likely to aim at developing personal skills such as time management (e.g., Muhlenbruck et al., 1999 ; Cooper and Valentine, 2001 ). Notwithstanding, the recent meta-analysis focused on mathematics and science by Fan et al. (2017) included a study in which elementary school teachers reported to assign homework to practice basic mathematics skills (see Bedford, 2014 ). Those differences (e.g., amount of homework assigned, homework purposes) may help explain the differential results regarding the benefits of homework in elementary and middle school (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ). Hence, elementary and middle school teachers were invited to talk about homework feedback in order to learn their conceptions and reported practices.

The current study focuses on mathematics (see Trautwein et al., 2006 on the importance of focusing homework research on a specific domain). The reason is threefold: students’ achievement levels, educational relevance of the subject, and previous research findings on homework. There is a global educational concern about students’ poor performance in mathematics. The PISA 2012 report indicates that students from 35 countries show a mathematics performance below the OECD average ( OECD, 2014 ). This worrying educational scenario raises serious challenges for some countries (among which is Portugal), given the fundamental role played by mathematics in other subjects (e.g., biology, physics) and in the development of life and citizenship skills (e.g., Reyna and Brainerd, 2007 ; OECD, 2014 ; Hagger et al., 2015 ). Moreover, mathematics was chosen because of the great amount of homework that is regularly set by teachers (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2006 ; Schmitz and Perels, 2011 ; Xu, 2015 ).

Materials and Methods

School and participants characteristics.

The last 2 years of elementary school in the Portuguese educational system encompass 5th and 6th grades (10 and 11 years old), while middle school includes 7th, 8th, and 9th grade (12–14 years old). Students have 270 min of mathematics per week in 5th and 6th grade, and 225 min per week in each of the three middle school years. At the end of 6th and 9th grade students complete a final exam that counts toward 30% of the overall grade.

Homework is an educational tool often used by Portuguese teachers as part of their lessons; still, there are no formal homework policies for Portuguese public schools (e.g., characteristics of homework assignments, homework follow-up practices; Rosário et al., 2015b ).

In the current study, participants were involved in focus group discussions and some of them in classroom observations.

Participants in Focus Groups

Six focus group discussions were conducted in this study, each of which comprised 7–9 mathematics teachers. Three focus groups were set up with elementary school teachers (5th and 6th grade) and three focus groups with middle school teachers (7th, 8th, and 9th grade). Following Morgan (1997) , homogeneity of groups was ensured in order to encourage participation among participants and minimize inhibition. Participating teachers met the following criteria: (i) having experience in teaching mathematics at elementary or middle school for at least 2 years, and (ii) assigning homework and providing homework feedback regularly (at least once a week). These requirements aimed to guarantee participants’ ability to generate ideas and opinions to share in their focus group.

The school administrators from the pool of schools which had previously enrolled in other university research projects were contacted by the authors. From those schools who agreed to participate, 20 public schools (approximately 25%) were randomly selected, and 75 mathematics teachers (approximately 25% of the pool of available elementary and middle school teachers) were randomly selected. Teachers were e-mailed about the purposes and procedures of the study (e.g., duration of the session, videotaping of the session) and invited to participate. To encourage participation (see Krueger and Casey, 2010 ), teachers were offered a participation reward (i.e., gift card), free baby-sitting services and a 3-h seminar on homework process and SRL to be held after the study had concluded.

In the end, 47 mathematics teachers (an acceptance rate of 63%) from 12 schools agreed to participate in the present study. The first author phoned the volunteer teachers to schedule the focus group meeting. Then, teachers were distributed into the various groups considering criteria such as: school, school level, and preferred scheduled time. Teachers with a hierarchical relationship were not allocated in the same focus group because this might affect their responses and the dynamics of the discussion ( Kitzinger, 1995 ; Irving et al., 2011 ). In order to encourage attendance, all participants were reminded of the focus group session 1 week before and were asked to arrive 10 min early. A map with the location was sent to all participants.

All teachers attended the focus group discussions on the scheduled day (see Table 2 for focus group demographics). Twenty-four teachers (51.1%) were teaching at elementary school level, and 23 (48.9%) at middle school level. In general, participating teachers had 21 years of teaching experience ( SD = 6.11); taught students from middle-class families, as evidenced by the low percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch (19.7%, data collected from the secretary’s office of the participating schools).

TABLE 2. Summary of demographic information of the focus groups.

Participants in Classroom Observations

Given the time-consuming nature of observational studies, of these 47 teachers, 25% of the participants were randomly selected and asked to be observed in their mathematics classes. Finally, six teachers of each school level ( N = 12; four males) were observed in their classrooms. These teachers had been teaching between two to five classes and they had an average of 19 years of teaching experience ( SD = 6.93).

Data Collection

Data was collected from two data sources: focus groups and classroom observations. The research team had previously enrolled in a qualitative research course offered by the University of Minho. Following a hands-on approach, the course training addressed topics including the following: how to lead focus group discussions (e.g., encouraging participation) and observations, and how to ensure the quality and credibility of a qualitative study.

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All subjects gave written informed consent to the different phases of the research (i.e., focus groups and classroom observations) in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Focus Group Discussions

Focus group interviews allow for in-depth exploration of meanings, attitudes, and personal experiences of participants about a particular topic during an informal, but structured, group discussion ( Kitzinger, 1995 ; Krueger and Casey, 2010 ). This method of data collection helps capture teachers’ tacit knowledge in order to fill research gaps ( Ryan et al., 2014 ). The focus group interviews were conducted by two members of the research team as facilitators while a third member filmed the sessions. To meet teachers’ availability requirements to participate, four focus group discussions were held at the end of the school year (July), and two at the beginning of the following school year (October). Each focus group session lasted approximately 60 min and took place in a room with appropriate light and sound conditions. To create a friendly environment, snacks and refreshments were offered to participants before and after the discussion. The chairs were arranged in a half circle to allow participants to see each other and to facilitate the filming of everyone in the room.

Prior to the discussions, teachers filled in a socio-demographic questionnaire (e.g., gender, years of teaching experience) and signed the written informed consent form. Then, the facilitators introduced themselves, read aloud the study purpose and the basic rules of the focus group discussion, and ensured confidentiality of participants’ responses (i.e., any information that may identify participants or their schools was eliminated at the end of the study).

To facilitate the interaction between participants, all focus group sessions started with a warm-up activity. Then, the facilitators started the discussion with general questions (e.g., the importance of homework) and, following Peterson and Irving (2008) and Irving et al. (2011) , specific questions related to the four key aspects of homework feedback were asked: definition, purpose, types of homework feedback, and perceived impact (see Table 3 ). This set of questions was previously asked to two teachers in order to ensure comprehensibility. These teachers did not participate in the focus group discussions.

TABLE 3. Key areas and guiding questions used in teachers’ focus groups.

Classroom Observations

Classroom observations were conducted to capture teachers’ spontaneous behaviors regarding the homework feedback process. All invited teachers were informed that they would be observed five times on average (see Kukliansky et al., 2016 ), in a period of 3 weeks in the middle of the school year (March). Teachers were blind to the exact date or timetable of the observations (dates of the mathematics assessment tests were excluded from the observations schedule) and all agreed to participate acknowledging these requirements. Two other members of the research team, who were knowledgeable about homework research, conducted the classroom observations. These observations incorporated a structured content based on previous homework research to direct researchers’ attention to teacher’s responses to students’ homework completion (see Choo et al., 2015 ). The instrument used to collect data included the five homework feedback types reported in the literature (e.g., Rosário et al., 2015b ). Additionally, researchers took field notes independently on the homework feedback process (e.g., time spent and how homework feedback was delivered), cross-checked and expanded upon their notes as promptly as possible. In the end, each teacher was observed on average five times, thus gathering a total of 64 h of classroom observations.

Data Analysis

Transcriptions of focus group discussions and observation field notes were analyzed using content analysis ( Bardin, 1996 ). The latter is a qualitative research technique used to search for and identify categories, following systematic procedures ( Bardin, 1996 ).

The researchers who conducted the focus groups carried out the data analysis. Content analysis followed three main steps ( Bardin, 1996 ): (i) reading the focus groups’ verbatim transcriptions to get an overview of the data (pre-analysis), (ii) coding (exploration of data), and (iii) treatment (e.g., percentages) and interpretation of data (e.g., comparing frequencies of coded categories). The organization, management, coding, and querying process of the data were conducted using the QSR International’s NVivo 10 software (e.g., Richards, 2005 ).

The extensiveness of comments (i.e., number of participants who convey an idea, Krueger and Casey, 2000 ) in the current study was the criterion used to identify categories. The identification of categories followed a deductive and inductive iterative process ( Bardin, 1996 ). The categories were organized a priori in a coding scheme based on the theoretical model by Irving et al. (2011) , and on the homework research (e.g., Walberg et al., 1985 ; Cooper, 2001 ; Xu, 2011 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). For example, the categories “definition,” “purposes,” “types,” and “perceived impact” of homework feedback were driven by the Irving et al. (2011) theoretical model, while each type of homework feedback (e.g., subcategory “checking homework on the board”) was driven by homework research (e.g., Rosário et al., 2015b ). New categories were added during the analysis using participants’ words ( Bardin, 1996 ). For example, the subcategories “homework feedback provided to teacher,” “self-esteem,” “homework self-feedback” were subcategories build upon teachers’ words. In the end, all transcripts were reviewed in order to check whether the already coded material fit the new subcategories.

Finally, the two researchers reviewed all the categories and sub-categories and discussed the differences found in order to reach a consensus (e.g., elimination of the subcategory “teachers assess students’ progress” because it was highly related to the subcategory “teachers monitor students’ learning”). After the data analysis of four focus group discussions (two from each school level), the researchers coded the two other focus group discussions and no new information was added. To ensure the reliability of findings, the Kappa value was calculated using the Coding Comparison Queries in the Navigation View of the NVivo software. The Kappa value was 0.86, which may be considered “almost perfect” according to Landis and Koch (1977 , p. 165). Then data from the elementary and middle school teachers were analyzed separately conducting a matrix-coding query, crossing nodes with attributes (i.e., school level). The number of participants for each subcategory was converted into a percentage.

The two researchers who conducted the classroom observations coded independently the process of homework feedback delivery described in the field notes according to the codebook used in the focus groups. No new categories or subcategories were identified or redefined. Data from the elementary and middle school teachers were analyzed separately following the procedure used in focus groups, and the number of participants for each subcategory was converted into a percentage. To avoid bias on the Kappa value in NVivo, due to different numbers of characters of the researchers’ field notes ( Kim et al., 2016 ), data was exported and IBM SPSS was used to calculate Cohen’s Kappa for nominal variables. The Cohen’s Kappa value for each subcategory ranged between 0.81 and 1.0, which indicates high agreement across observers.

To answer the second research question (i.e., How do the four key aspects of the homework feedback relate to each other?), data analysis followed two steps using the same software. First, a Cluster Analysis Wizard by word similarity between nodes was conducted to explore patterns and connections between nodes in an initial phase of data analysis ( Bazeley and Jackson, 2013 ). Second, a case-by-nodes matrix was conducted to explore the relationships between each category in the focus group discussion transcripts as suggested by Bazeley and Jackson (2013) .

Specific quality procedures were used to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings of the current study ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ): investigator triangulation (i.e., several investigators were involved in the analysis process), methodological triangulation (i.e., patterns in data from focus groups and classroom observations were compared using a matrix-coding query, crossing nodes with classified sources – focus group and observations), and a member checking run at the University facilities. The researchers randomly selected and invited 25% of the participants of each grade level to do a member check ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ). Ten teachers agreed to participate (six from elementary school and four from middle school) (response rate of 83%). Member checking session lasted approximately 2 h. Firstly, participants were informed of the findings (approximately 45 min). Afterward, they were given a copy of the findings and asked to analyze and discuss whether the description was an authentic representation of the topics covered during the focus group interviews. The participants also analyzed whether the description of the homework feedback types provided to students was an authentic representation of what usually happens in class. Participants were invited to critically analyze the findings and comment on them ( Creswell, 2007 ).

Data were organized and reported according to each of the key aspects of teachers’ conceptions of the homework feedback (see Peterson and Irving, 2008 ): definition, purpose, types of homework feedback practices, and perceived impact of homework feedback (see Figures 1 , 2 ). Furthermore, the relationships between these four aspects were presented (see Figure 3 ). Teachers’ verbatim quotes were introduced to illustrate the categories and conversations held in the focus group discussions (see also Table 4 ). In addition, whenever possible, data from classroom observations were included to illustrate findings. Categories were reported using the criteria by Hill et al. (2005 , p. 16) as follows: general (i.e., categories include all, or all but one, of the cases), typical (i.e., categories include more than half of the cases) and variant (i.e., categories include more than three cases or up to half of the cases). For reasons of parsimony, rare categories (two or three cases) were not reported.

FIGURE 1. Elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback for each key aspect.

FIGURE 2. Observed elementary and middle school teachers’ homework feedback practices.

FIGURE 3. Relationships among teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback.

TABLE 4. Summary of findings.

Initial Data Screening

All participants reported assigning homework regularly and considered homework feedback as an important element for homework effectiveness. Data showed that, for each homework assignment, 96% of the elementary school teachers and 52% of the middle school teachers reported spending approximately 30 min giving homework feedback in class. Moreover, 48% of the middle school teachers spent on average 15 min giving homework feedback in class. Classroom observations provided precise information on the time spent in class giving homework feedback: 3–80 min in elementary school classes ( M = 32.75; SD = 19.91), and 5–55 min in middle school classes ( M = 29.89; SD = 17.36).

Definitions of Homework Feedback

When teachers were asked about their definition of homework feedback, the majority said they “had never thought about it” (F1P1). Still, elementary and middle school teachers elaborated on homework feedback differently (see Figure 1 ). Teachers from elementary school proposed two meanings for homework feedback: (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher and (ii) students’ homework self-feedback. For middle school teachers, homework feedback was conceptualized as threefold): (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher; (ii) homework feedback provided by the student; and (iii) students’ homework self-feedback. The analysis of the frequency labels for each category revealed no general categories, which allows concluding that definitions of homework feedback vary among teachers, irrespective of the grade level. Moreover, while “homework feedback provided to students” is a variant category in elementary school, in middle school is a typical category (see Figure 1 ).

For elementary school teachers in one focus group discussion and for middle school teachers in two focus groups, homework feedback provided by teachers was defined as a message provided to students with information concerning their homework behaviors (i.e., completion, effort), and comprehension of homework tasks and performance (e.g., how well students answered, why answers are wrong).

Middle school teachers in all focus groups conceptualized homework feedback in the reverse direction (i.e., from the students to the teacher), as the following statement illustrates:

F5P2: Some weeks ago, I noticed that several students in class had not understood some homework exercises. I asked the whole class and found out that no one had understood. Two or three students said: Sir, these exercises were a bit complicated… We did not understand what we were expected to do, how to start… This was the homework feedback they gave me.

The remaining teachers nodded their heads in agreement and added that this piece of information gathered at the beginning of a lesson helps them choose the type of homework feedback to give to students.

Lastly, elementary school teachers of two focus groups, and middle school teachers of one focus group (see Figure 1 ) proposed another meaning for homework feedback: “homework self-feedback” (typical category in elementary school and variant category in middle school). The following utterance illustrates this conceptualization:

F2P3: Homework feedback is when students can explain or reflect upon what they are doing…or checking from their seats when we check homework on the board.

Another elementary school teacher elaborated on students’ homework self-feedback:

F4P4: Homework feedback is also related to students’ homework completion. All my students draw a grid in their notebooks and devote one row to homework. Every day they write 1 for “completed” homework and 0 for “missing.” At the end of the term they have a score. I believe this to be self-feedback because students know their score and link it to school grades. They know that those who complete homework are likely to achieve better results. The opposite is also true….

This type of homework feedback (i.e., self-feedback) is more focused on students’ homework behaviors than on students’ homework performance. Still, other teachers from the same focus group reported that they do not use this strategy with their students.

Purposes of Homework Feedback

The homework feedback purposes identified by teachers at both school levels were similar. Teachers enthusiastically talked about homework feedback as a “working tool” serving three main purposes (see Figure 1 ): (i) teachers monitor students’ learning and behavior (typical category in both school levels); (ii) students monitor their own learning (typical category in elementary school and variant category in middle school); and (iii) promotion of students’ self-esteem (variant category in both school levels).

When asked to expand on this idea, participants explained that homework feedback helps teachers identify students’ difficulties and monitor their content knowledge, which provides information to self-evaluate the instruction process and introduce changes if necessary. In fact, some students struggle to learn and show difficulties to understand and complete homework. To promote students’ motivation to do homework, teachers agreed on the need – “after charging our batteries of patience” (F6P3) – to explain in class how to do homework exercises. Besides, teachers exemplified the usefulness of homework feedback for monitoring students’ homework behaviors (e.g., checking whether students have completed their homework, whether they have copied the solutions from a textbook). This category emerged in all focus group discussions, and was consensual among participants. Teachers emphatically agreed on the examples discussed and expanded on others’ ideas. The following statements illustrate some of the conversations held:

F2P4: Homework feedback is important in order to learn about what is happening on earth [some teachers laughed], to learn whether most students do their homework, whether they manage to do it alone or need some help, but also to learn about their difficulties during the learning process and act upon their mistakes.

F2P1: To know whether I delivered the message well or not so… Homework feedback should make us change our instruction methodologies. If the message was not properly delivered, it’s necessary to change the course of action…

Moreover, many elementary and some middle school teachers in all focus groups mentioned students’ monitoring of their own learning as an important purpose of homework feedback, as illustrated by the following opinion:

F5P3: With the help of homework feedback, students can learn what is right or wrong in their homework. If the homework assignment is correct, they get some positive reinforcement. If it is not correct, they learn that they have to study more and do additional exercises.

Some points made by participants focused exclusively on one of the two previous purposes (see Figure 1 ). However, some teachers in all focus groups irrespective of grade level considered homework feedback a purposeful tool for teachers or students to monitor progress in learning. In sum, teachers admitted that homework feedback provides on-task opportunities for teachers and students to monitor the teaching and learning process.

Moreover, teachers from five focus groups pointed at the promotion of students’ self-esteem as another purpose of homework feedback (see Figure 1 ). Elementary and middle school teachers supported this idea, showing concern about students’ wellbeing, mainly of low achievers:

F5P6: When they [students] realize that they are capable of doing homework exercises, they feel very happy and proud of themselves. When they fail to complete or feel frustrated because they couldn’t find a way to do the exercises, I try to make positive comments, highlighting what they did well in order to make them feel confident. It is crucial to give them positive reinforcements to improve their self-esteem.

Types of Homework Feedback Practices

Going further in the discussion, teachers identified the most frequently used homework feedback practices: (i) checking homework completion; (ii) checking homework on the board; (iii) testing related content; (iv) considering homework in the overall grade; (v) informing parents of their children’s homework non-compliance (homework feedback to parents); and (vi) giving written comments (see Figure 1 ).

The two types of homework feedback practices first mentioned in all focus group discussions were: checking who completes homework and checking homework on the board. The classroom observations (see Figure 2 ) provided information on the classroom routines and, with some exceptions, allowed concluding that classes usually begin with similar routines: checking who did homework and then checking homework on the board.

As Figure 1 shows, checking homework completion is a general and typical category among elementary and middle school teachers, respectively. When discussing this practice (see Table 4 ), some of the elementary and middle school teachers argued that they simply ask who completed homework. On the other hand, most elementary and some middle school teachers explained that they walk around the class having a glance at students’ notebooks in order to check homework completion. This strategy allows noting who actually did their homework and gathers information on how students did it (e.g., whether students followed all the steps to solve a problem). In this process, teachers reported that they try to understand the reasons why students did not complete homework (e.g., is failing to complete homework a class problem or is it only associated with a particular student?). The participating teachers considered this type of homework feedback useful because it gives information on the process and allows them to respond to students’ maladaptive homework behaviors (e.g., missing homework, copying solutions from peer students, writing down results without checking). Teachers from both school levels reported using logs in class to record who missed homework, and data from the classroom observations corroborated this finding. When asked how they usually deal with maladaptive homework completion behaviors, some teachers at both school levels reported criticizing students who repeatedly fail to complete homework or copy answers from the textbook, as the following utterance illustrates:

F6P5: Where is your homework? Oh, I see. Keep working like this and you will get far… [ironic tone]

The use of public criticism and irony in response to maladaptive homework behaviors was observed sometimes in elementary school classes, and often in middle school classes.

When discussing the best practice regarding homework, participants at both school levels named checking homework on the board as a practice that “reaches all students” (F6P4). All teachers were very emphatic about the importance and usefulness of this type of feedback. As Figure 1 shows, this practice is the most frequently used by elementary and middle school teachers. Moreover, present data (i.e., focus group discussions and classroom observations) suggest several ways in which this type of homework feedback may be put into practice. For example, some teachers reported that they check homework on the board; others mentioned writing on the board the answers dictated by students from their seats; while others explained that they randomly choose one or more students to do homework exercises on the board. Elementary and middle school teachers further explained additional homework feedback practices adopted after displaying the solution for the exercise on the board: (i) whole-class discussion led by the teacher; (ii) further explanation provided by the teacher or by the students on what is written on the board; (iii) teachers’ praise for students’ efforts in learning or good performance, or (iv) general incentives encouraging students to persist when doing homework. The observations conducted in the classrooms provided data that showed that all these strategies were used in class when teachers were checking homework on the board. Still, frequency and sequence of the strategies used by teachers (e.g., students check homework on the board, teacher explains problem solving procedures, class discussion) varied according to the needs and characteristics of the class. Moreover, classroom observations revealed that when students ask teachers for help, some teachers provide individual explanations while checking homework on the board. For example, when students raise their hand to show a lack of understanding while checking homework on the board, some teachers go to the student’s desk to answer their question individually.

Teachers at both school levels also emphasized checking homework on the board as a way of giving feedback to the whole class with minimum time and effort:

F1P1: When homework is being checked on the board by a student, I identify what is incorrect and explain how the exercise may be approached. Still, this feedback is very general because I cannot check every single assignment that students hands in. I simple cannot do it!

However, some participating teachers alerted that students who check homework on the board get a more detailed type of feedback than those who passively watch from their seats or do not pay attention to the checking process.

Moreover, many elementary and some middle school teachers in all focus group discussions mentioned asking questions, or assigning exercises similar to those of previous homework assignments (see Figure 1 , Testing of related content). Data from the classroom observations confirmed this practice. Participants stressed that this practice provides students with a new feedback event centered on the level of accuracy of their responses and on their ability to transfer the knowledge learned to new tasks. However, despite the general agreement regarding this homework feedback practice, some middle school teachers admitted that they only check students’ ability to transfer knowledge in assessment tests and claimed that this practice should not be considered homework feedback – “This is assessment, not feedback! [Emphatic tone]” (F1P5).

Most participants at both school levels reported following their school’s assessment criteria regarding homework. Generally, homework completion counts for 2–5% of the overall grade in mathematics. When asked to be more specific, several teachers explained that they use information on homework completion recorded in class logs, while others declared using information on students’ performance when checking homework on the board. Teachers admitted that they do not examine the quality of all homework assignments given in class because of the heavy workload they faced on a daily basis. During classroom observations, teachers registered who did not complete homework and sometimes they referred that this behavior would decrease their overall grade. Most teachers in all focus groups reported including information on homework completion in the overall mathematics grade; still, less than half identified this practice as a type of homework feedback.

Furthermore, some of the elementary and middle school teachers in all focus groups mentioned sending parents a message when their children miss homework three times as a type of homework feedback. This practice was confirmed by data from classroom observations. Interestingly, participants did not mention reporting children’s progress on homework to parents during the focus group discussions, and accordingly this practice was not observed in class.

Finally, a few elementary school teachers in two focus group discussions and a few middle school teachers in one focus group reported commenting on students’ homework regularly. Comments address the strengths and weaknesses of homework, pointing out the topics that need to be improved, as the following quotation exemplifies:

F4P1: I comment on what is done well, but I also point out mistakes and suggest ways to improve what is wrong or not so well done. For example, I’d write: “Great line of reasoning but try to do x so you’ll only have to do two calculations and you’ll finish the exercises faster.” Unfortunately, sometimes I have to write other kinds of comments such as “What a coincidence, your answer is exactly the same as Joana’s or Catarina’s … and the three of you have made exactly the same mistakes…”

These few participants were asked by their focus group peers how they managed to comment on students’ homework regularly. A teacher answered that she could do it because she had been assigned only one class; still, “I spent my lunch hour and some of my free time at school working on this” (F3P3). Another teacher explained that she provides this type of homework feedback weekly, except for those weeks when students have assessment tests. According to this last participant, the negative side of this practice, “frustrating I should say” (F4P1), is when students copy homework answers from another student. Commenting on students’ homework is a very time-consuming practice, and this participant expressed feeling discouraged when such maladaptive behaviors occur in class. To overcome the “very time-consuming obstacle,” another teacher who also claimed to use this practice explained that he usually asks the whole class to complete homework on a separate sheet – “I choose only one good exercise which reflects the material covered in class” (F5P7). In the next lesson, and without prior notice, he collects four or five homework assignments, which are returned with feedback comments in the following class. Participants in the three focus group discussions agreed that this type of homework feedback is very useful, but also stressed the unlikelihood of giving it in class because of the heavy workload they as teachers have to bear (e.g., teachers have to teach five or six classes at different grade levels, each of them with over 25 students, heavy curriculums). In this context, one participant complained: “I’m not a rubber band that may be stretched [endlessly]” (F5P5).

Perceived Impact of Homework Feedback

As Figure 1 shows, elementary and middle school teachers highlighted the positive impact of homework feedback on content learning, self-esteem, and homework completion (some categories are typical and others are variant).

The following dialog among elementary school teachers illustrates their conceptions on the impact of homework feedback:

F4P9: Students who complete homework regularly are more willing to understand the contents covered.

F4P2: …and they complete homework more often… At least I notice more effort.

Moreover, both elementary and middle school teachers related homework feedback to class participation (variant category in both school levels), as the following participant argued:

F4P5: Yes…they [students who complete homework regularly] follow classroom instructions and participate in class more actively, for example, by asking me questions and answering mine more frequently…

Only elementary school teachers in two focus group discussions related homework feedback to students’ achievement, while none of the middle school teachers did so (see Figure 1 ). In fact, some of the middle school teachers in all the focus group discussions defended the need for students to play an active role in their learning, arguing that homework feedback is not worthwhile for those who are not interested in learning.

Relationships between Teachers’ Conceptions of Homework Feedback

The second research question aimed to examine how the four key aspects of the homework feedback are related. Figure 3 provides a graphical model of teachers’ most salient conceptions of homework feedback and the relationships among them. The bold solid lines represent typical cases (more than 50%), the thinner solid lines represent variant categories (between 25 and 50% cases), and the dotted lines represent variant categories (between 17 and 24% cases). All lines represent the conceptions of both elementary and middle school teachers except for the lines with an asterisk, which refer to a specific school level (see legend of Figure 3 ).

As Figure 3 shows, the definitions of homework feedback provided by elementary and middle school teachers differ regarding the purposes for giving homework feedback. The middle school teachers perceived homework feedback as the feedback provided by the teacher to their students about their homework. The purpose for this homework feedback was described by teachers as twofold: help teachers monitor students’ learning and help students monitor their own learning. The latter was mentioned less often by middle school teachers. Besides, the middle school teachers conceptualized homework feedback provided to teachers by their students with the purpose of helping teachers monitor students’ learning.

In turn, elementary school teachers perceived homework feedback mainly as self-feedback and, accordingly, conceptualized students’ monitoring of their learning as the main purpose for giving homework feedback. While discussing, these teachers highlighted students’ active role in self-regulate their learning during and after homework completion (e.g., students checking their answers when solutions are written on the board). Still, the elementary school teachers did not explain how they promote these self-regulation skills in class. Moreover, the second set of relationships (i.e., purposes and homework feedback types) reveals a different pattern of results as described below.

Interestingly, the participating teachers operationalized both homework purposes (i.e., teachers monitoring students learning and students’ monitoring their own learning, the latter less often; see Figure 3 ) through the “checking homework on the board” homework feedback type. Teachers’ arguments were twofold: this practice allows checking students’ level of understanding of content (e.g., students solving exercises autonomously on the board), and students can learn about their skills while checking their answers with those written on the board.

The homework feedback practice testing related contents was also linked to both purposes but only by elementary school teachers. These teachers argued that providing students with similar exercises to those previously set as homework helps teachers monitor their students’ learning and students to monitor their own learning.

The purpose “teachers’ monitoring their students’ learning” was linked to the practice “checking homework completion” by elementary and middle school teachers. This homework feedback practice helps teachers learn who completed homework and collect information on the content with which students are struggling the most. This information is expected to help teachers meet their students’ needs.

Finally, the various types of homework feedback were associated with various perceived impacts. Teachers at both school levels converged in the fact that checking homework completion impacts students’ homework completion positively. In general, teachers mentioned that some students are “immature” and their lack of active involvement and strong volition prevent them from completing homework. Thus, most of the teachers at both school levels anticipated that external control is needed to help students complete homework. Checking homework completion was referred to as an important tool for encouraging students to do homework.

As Figure 3 depicts, teachers described checking homework on the board as the homework feedback practice that most benefits students. According to participants, this practice fosters self-esteem (only reported by elementary school teachers), homework completion (reported by some teachers at both school levels), class participation (reported by some teachers at both levels), and learning of the content taught in class (reported by most of the teachers from both levels). Teachers explained that praising students on their good performance while doing exercises on the board is likely to increase their self-esteem. Furthermore, teachers said that this practice encourages homework completion and increases class participation because it provides students with specific information on how to solve exercises.

Some elementary school teachers reported that testing related content helps students participate more in class (e.g., answering teacher’s questions, asking more questions) and be more engaged in their learning.

A few teachers at both school levels (see Figure 3 ) mentioned counting homework in the overall grade, and communicating with parents when their children miss homework three times as two types of homework feedback with impact on students’ homework completion. Counting homework completion in the overall grade was referred to as a direct incentive for students to complete homework. However, some teachers alerted that this practice may not always be effective because of the time gap between students’ homework behaviors and the end of term when they get their final grade report. Thus, all agreed that teachers should respond to students’ homework behaviors (e.g., missing homework or doing assignments correctly) as soon as possible. Participants highlighted the importance of communicating with families about children’s homework behaviors. However, teachers alerted that this type of homework feedback may not be effective without the implication of the family in the learning process; “if the family is aware of the importance of this type of practice, then it will be effective, otherwise it will have no effect” (F3P4).

As reported previously, 17% of the elementary and middle school teachers claimed to make written comments on students’ homework assignments (see Figure 1 ). However, when discussing the possible impact of the various types of homework feedback, more teachers (than that 17%) agreed that written comments on students’ assignments would improve students’ learning of content (see Figure 3 ). These teachers mentioned that personalized homework feedback would help students correct their mistakes and might provide guidance on the topics that need to be further studied. As a result, students were likely to improve their grades.

The discussion of the current study is organized according to each key aspect of teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback. Regarding the first key aspect of homework feedback, teachers proposed a multifaceted definition of homework feedback: (i) homework feedback provided by the teacher, (ii) homework feedback provided by the student, and (iii) homework self-feedback. The latter extends the definition of Cooper (2001) , who defined homework feedback as the teachers’ responses to students’ homework completion as a follow-up (e.g., comments, incentives, grades). The definition of homework self-feedback is linked to the internal feedback or self-feedback proposed by Butler and Winne (1995) and Hattie and Timperley (2007) , respectively. According to these authors, students are expected to display self-regulatory skills to self-evaluate their performance in homework assignments (see Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ). Interestingly, this category is typical in elementary school, but variant in middle school. This is an important finding because the generation of internal feedback requires knowledge on strategies and standards, as well as the capacity to judge the quality of a task in relation to standards, which not all students are capable of, especially those at lower grade levels ( Zimmerman and Martinez-Pons, 1990 ; Butler and Winne, 1995 ; Rosário et al., 2016 ). Moreover, low achievers struggling to learn often fail to activate and control the SRL process ( Núñez et al., 2015a ). In fact, these students are likely to fail to monitor their homework behaviors because they do not know “whether they are on the right track” (F4P8).

Consistently with literature, teachers’ major conceptions of homework feedback purposes addressed monitoring students’ learning, either focusing on teachers’ or on students’ role ( Corno, 2000 ; An and Wu, 2012 ; Bang, 2012 ). This may be particularly important in mathematics where contents are organized so as to follow a continuous progression and lower levels prepare the foundations of subsequent levels ( Pijls and Dekker, 2011 ). Teachers’ monitoring provides the opportunity for teachers to change their teaching practices in response to students’ needs ( Walberg and Paik, 2000 ; Kralovec and Buell, 2001 ), which may be understood as a “student-centered” approach (see Sheridan, 2013 ). The conception of homework feedback purposes focused on students’ monitoring their work emphasizes students’ active role during the homework process and the use of SRL competencies such as self-monitoring and self-reflection (e.g., Ramdass and Zimmerman, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ). The last purpose of homework feedback proposed by participants is to “promote self-esteem.” This purpose is not mentioned in homework literature; however, in the study by Irving et al. (2011) , teachers mentioned the need to inform students about the positive aspects of their performance, thus incentivizing their progress, especially among low achievers showing low self-esteem.

Regarding the third topic of homework feedback (homework feedback types), findings in the current study are consistent with literature ( Cooper, 2001 ; Mullis et al., 2004 ; Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ; Kukliansky et al., 2016 ). However, despite the similarity of the homework feedback practices reported by elementary and middle school teachers, the percentages of each reported category vary. For example, checking homework completion and checking homework on the board are general categories in elementary school and typical categories in middle school; while testing of related content is a typical category in elementary school and a variant category in middle school. These findings are consistent with students’ reports on their teachers’ support in homework ( Katz et al., 2010 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ). A decrease in teachers’ support in homework at middle school level is expected because older students are likely to be more autonomous. However, Katz et al. (2010) found that the middle school students who perceived low teachers’ homework support reported high psychological needs and low intrinsic motivation. Other important finding to note is the use of criticism observed in elementary and middle school classrooms which may have the opposite effect of teachers’ intentions (e.g., reduce homework non-compliance). In fact, being criticized in class is likely to be non-constructive because it may reduce students’ willingness to accept criticism and result in low favorable responses toward homework. On the contrary, criticism delivered in private is likely to lead to better responses (see Leung et al., 2001 ).

According to participants, homework feedback impacts in the following aspects: content learning, self-esteem, homework completion, class participation, and achievement. Globally, this finding is consistent with previous research (e.g., Trautwein and Lüdtke, 2009 ; Xu, 2011 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ), except for class participation and self-esteem which have not yet been studied. It is interesting to note, however, that despite most teachers reported spending 30 min or more providing homework feedback in each class (see Initial Data Screening subsection); about one third of elementary school teachers related homework feedback to students’ achievement, while none of the middle school teachers did so. However, prior research has evidenced the positive impact of homework feedback on students’ academic achievement ( Núñez et al., 2015b ), especially when teachers provide suggestions on how to improve learning (see Elawar and Corno, 1985 ; Walberg et al., 1985 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ).

Moreover, middle school teachers added that when students do not play an active role in their learning, feedback is not likely to have any impact. This conception is consistent with the SRL approach to the homework process (e.g., Xu and Wu, 2013 ; Xu, 2014 ; Núñez et al., 2015b ) which stresses, for example, the role that teachers may play in helping students define their own homework goals and reflect on the relationship between homework completion and achieving self-set learning goals (e.g., Núñez et al., 2015b ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). As Labuhn et al. (2010) observed, the feedback provided by teachers may not impact students’ learning and behaviors if students do not understand what is intended with homework feedback.

Findings gathered from relationships between teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback provide additional useful insights. Interestingly, the two most frequently reported types of homework feedback (i.e., checking homework completion and checking homework on the board) in both school levels are more linked to the purpose “teachers monitoring students’ learning” than to the purpose “students monitoring their own learning.” This data may suggest that teachers may not be fully aware of the importance of promoting students’ SRL competencies to increase the benefits of homework feedback or they may lack the knowledge to promote these skills in class (see Spruce and Bol, 2015 ).

Practical Implications

The current study provides four major findings of relevance for educational practice: (i) decrease of teachers’ reported homework feedback practices from elementary to middle school level; (ii) a few teachers from elementary school and none from middle school level perceive homework feedback impacting on students’ academic achievement; (iii) usage of public criticism in class, especially in middle school; and (iv) teachers’ lack of awareness on SRL strategies.

First, teachers and school administrators with the help of school psychologists could examine homework practices delivered in class, namely homework feedback, to analyze whether they are set to be responsive to students’ educational needs. As found in the current study, there is a decrease of the homework feedback from elementary to middle school; however, this finding should be considered by teachers because, according to literature, many middle school students still report the need of teachers’ homework support (e.g., Katz et al., 2010 ).

Data also showed that both elementary and middle school teachers spend around 30 min providing homework feedback in class, but the perceived impact of this school practice on students’ achievement was barely mentioned in the focus groups. This data merit reflection within the school context to understand whether homework feedback is being used with efficacy. For example, school-based training for teachers’ on homework models (e.g., Cooper, 2001 ; Trautwein et al., 2006 ) could theoretically ground their homework practices in schools. This training would also help teachers understand that criticism and irony in class may discourage homework compliance, but it also may lead to undesirable outcomes such as children homework disengagement.

Finally, data (e.g., elementary school teachers believe that students generate homework self-feedback; the homework feedback practices most used in class are more closely related to the purpose “teachers monitoring students’ learning” than to the purpose “students monitoring their own learning”) suggest the need to set school-based training for teachers on SRL strategies. This training could consider addressing the homework process in relation with SRL to promote students’ agency and sense of responsibility over homework and homework feedback in particular. For example, teachers are expected to learn and practice how to model the use of SRL strategies in class ( Rosário et al., 2013 ; Spruce and Bol, 2015 ). In fact, students lacking SRL skills may fail to use the homework feedback delivered in class, which may compromise the impact of this instructional tool on students learning and achievement (see Corno, 2000 ; Peterson and Irving, 2008 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ). To promote the development of students SRL competencies and increase the benefits of homework feedback, teachers may also consider using “diary tasks” to promote students’ homework self-reflection in class (see Ferreira et al., 2015 ).

Strengths, Limitations, and Future Research

To authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to map mathematics teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback and examine the relationships between teachers’ definitions, purposes, types, and perceived impact of homework feedback. The analysis of these relationships focusing on a specific content domain at two school levels showed which categories were linked, and how, by the participating teachers. This study extended previous research conducted with mathematics teachers from a single grade level (see Kaur, 2011 ; Zhu and Leung, 2012 ).

According to the current findings, elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback vary, as well as the time spent in class providing feedback. Moreover, in spite of the fact that the types of homework feedback practices are the same, the type of categories (i.e., general vs. typical and typical vs. variant) varies in the two school levels, and the dynamic of providing homework feedback at those school levels is diverse and complex (e.g., usage of various strategies to provide some types of homework feedback, even by the same teacher). These findings may help understand why the relationship between homework and academic achievement reported in the literature varies from elementary to middle school (see Cooper et al., 2006 ; Fan et al., 2017 ).

Furthermore, the complexity of the homework feedback process reflected by the collected data may not be captured by extant instruments that examine teachers’ homework feedback practices. To some extent, this may contribute to understand the low effect sizes and explained variances found in the homework feedback research (e.g., Xu, 2014 ; Rosário et al., 2015b ). This finding reinforces the need for future studies collect data using more than one method to capture and better understand the phenomenon of the homework process and its influence on students’ academic outcomes (e.g., Cooper et al., 2006 ). Furthermore, findings showed positive relationships between some types of homework feedback practices and perceived impact on students’ variables that have not yet been examined in homework research (e.g., checking homework on the blackboard and class participation). Future studies may consider further examining these relationships.

The present study followed methodological procedures to enhance trustworthiness of findings such as random sampling, investigator and methodological triangulation, provision of direct quotations, and member checking ( Lincoln and Guba, 1985 ; Shenton, 2004 ; Elo et al., 2014 ). Results from member checking were very positive. The majority of the participants agreed that the description of the findings was a genuine reflection of the topics covered in the focus group discussions, and of the homework routines in the classroom. No suggestions were made to change the description of data. Such data have strengthened present findings. In addition, teachers highlighted that they usually choose types of homework feedback that reach all students because of the professional constraints they experience daily (i.e., heavy workload). This topic was mentioned during the discussions and may merit further investigation because it may be an important factor compromising the homework feedback process.

Notwithstanding the strengths of the current study, there are also some limitations that need to be addressed. Classroom observations helped strengthen findings, nevertheless only 25% of the participating teachers were observed in a limited period of time. Moreover, most of the participants have extensive experience in teaching, which may have contributed to the results. As Hattie (2003) reported, expert teachers are more capable of seeking and giving feedback, and also monitoring their students’ learning than novice teachers. Conducting studies on novice teachers would help identify their specific needs for training on instructional variables, and design school-based interventions to meet these professionals’ needs.

Elementary and middle school teachers’ conceptions of homework feedback were mapped, but the role of students in the homework feedback process should be further researched. Further investigation may want to explore elementary and middle school students’ conceptions of homework feedback and compare their responses with current findings. The information provided would be useful to learn how students understand (e.g., in what ways students perceive teachers’ homework feedback practices as helpful, see Xu, 2016 ) and cope with the homework feedback given in class. Examining the (mis)alignment of both conceptions of homework feedback (elementary and middle school teachers and students) may help deepen the understanding of the impact of homework feedback and further examine the differential relationship between doing homework and academic achievement at these two school levels (see Cooper et al., 2006 ). The results, although promising, should be further investigated in different school grades and subjects. At this level, however, they may be useful to researchers looking for an in-depth understanding of homework feedback and willing to explore new research topics on the “last but not least” aspect of the homework process.

Ethics Statement

This study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committee of the University of Minho. All research participants provided written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Author Contributions

JC and PR substantially contributed to the conception and the design of the work. JC was responsible for the literature search. JC, AN, TM, JN, and TN were responsible for the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work. PR was also in charge of technical guidance. JN made important intellectual contribution in manuscript revision. JC wrote the manuscript with valuable inputs from the remaining authors. All authors agreed for all aspects of the work and approved the version to be published.

This study was conducted at Psychology Research Centre (UID/PSI/01662/2013), University of Minho, and supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds and co-financed by FEDER through COMPETE2020 under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007653). JC was supported by a Ph.D. fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT – SFRH/BD/95341/2013).

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank Sofia Kirkman and Fuensanta Monroy for the English editing of the manuscript.

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Keywords : homework feedback, teachers’ conceptions, homework feedback purposes, perceived impact, focus group, classroom observations

Citation: Cunha J, Rosário P, Núñez JC, Nunes AR, Moreira T and Nunes T (2018) “Homework Feedback Is…”: Elementary and Middle School Teachers’ Conceptions of Homework Feedback. Front. Psychol. 9:32. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00032

Received: 13 September 2017; Accepted: 10 January 2018; Published: 06 February 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Cunha, Rosário, Núñez, Nunes, Moreira and Nunes. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Pedro Rosário, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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6 Tips for Managing the Feedback Workload

Providing feedback is proven to increase student learning, and there are ways to make the work involved more manageable.

We know that giving students feedback works: In his meta-analysis, John Hattie found that it has an effect size of 0.7 , which is beyond the “hinge point,” or average effect size, of 0.4—meaning that it has a significant effect on student learning.

However, giving feedback can be challenging, and it’s certainly a lot of work. We’ve all taken student assignments home over the weekend or stayed late after school grading papers. This may be necessary from time to time, but there are strategies we can use to reduce this workload by working smarter for our students.

Reducing the Feedback Workload

1. Recognize when instructional feedback is called for: Sometimes written feedback is not the best or most effective strategy for improving student learning. If you collect an assessment and notice that there are significant errors common to many students’ responses, it may be more appropriate to correct these errors through reteaching.

This is instructional feedback—using student assessments as a tool to reflect on our teaching and reteaching the content in a new way. Instead of providing written feedback for each student, we can say to the class, “I noticed that many of us didn’t do so well. Rather than give feedback on every student’s paper, I’m going to do something different to help us all learn.”

2. Promote thinking, but don’t do the thinking: A common mistake in giving feedback—one that often takes a lot of time, and isn’t the best use of that time—is providing it in a way that does the thinking for students, rather than pushing them to think and learn. An example of this is correcting every grammar or punctuation mistake in a paper—circling all the capital letters that should be lowercase, or correcting all of the end punctuation. The student is given the answer and isn’t required to do any cognitive work.

Instead a teacher might verbally say, “I’m noticing many capital letter and punctuation mistakes.” Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey refer to this as providing prompts and cues that guide student thinking. It’s better for the students because it requires them to figure out where they’re going wrong. And handing this work to the students takes it off the teacher’s plate.

3. Don’t provide feedback on summative assessments: This might seem counterintuitive—or perhaps even mean. We always want to support our students, so why wouldn’t we give feedback on major assignments?

The key question when giving feedback is: Will it be actionable and useful? If an assignment is truly summative—an end-of-unit test, for example—students most likely won’t have an opportunity to redo it or to use the feedback. If that’s true, providing detailed feedback may be a waste of time.

But note that if you’re going to allow students to redo the assessment, you should provide the students who will redo it with feedback that will help them learn the content better. You don’t need to provide feedback to the students who will not redo the assessment.

4. Address feedback requests: Another way to work more efficiently is to have students request feedback when they need it, rather than giving feedback to all students. Students may request it at any time—even on a summative, when you don’t ordinarily give feedback.

One teacher I worked with offered feedback conferences that interested students could sign up for. These were similar to the 60-second interview , except the teacher’s intent was to give feedback rather than to check for understanding. She worried that students who really needed the feedback wouldn’t sign up, and she was correct about that—initially they didn’t. But as other students found the conferences to be useful, all of her students became more inclined to request one when they felt they needed it because the conferences provided “just in time” feedback. These took place during normal instructional time.

5. Focus on self-assessment and peer feedback: Instead of doing all the work, put some of the onus on students to provide feedback. In his meta-analysis, Hattie found that self-assessment or student-reported grades had a significantly positive effect on student achievement. Giving students assessment criteria and having them gauge their progress not only increases student learning, but also saves time.

Peer feedback can also benefit both students and teachers, while promoting a collaborative classroom and culture. It takes clear protocols and modeling to support students in doing peer feedback, but the effort is worthwhile.

6. Don’t wait: Instead of spending hours in epic sessions of writing feedback on a full draft, provide it in smaller ways that are spread out over time. This is not only more efficient but better for students, who get more digestible feedback that is actionable and timely.

For example, instead of providing feedback or setting up a peer review session that covers all parts of an essay—from the thesis to the organization to the conclusion—give feedback in chunks. Do a peer review on the thesis and the introduction, and then later give feedback on the next body paragraph, and so on.

Feedback is powerful and is proven to increase student learning, and there are many strategies teachers can use to make it more effective and efficient.

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20 Constructive Feedback Examples for Performance Reviews

Table of contents, get constructive with these colleague feedback examples.

What is constructive feedback? Constructive feedback is guidance that helps the recipient achieve a positive outcome. Even the best managers struggle to deliver less than positive feedback effectively—so we’ve developed these 20 employee feedback examples to help.

Constructive feedback examples for speaking over others

An employee who speaks over others in meetings can seem rude or overbearing. However, they may feel this exact trait reflects their passion, expertise, or leadership qualities. So, appeal to this enthusiasm:

1. “It’s clear you’re excited about the project. But sometimes, when you get excited, you don’t leave room for others to bring their ideas to the table. In particular, I noticed that you spoke over David and Muriel several times throughout the meeting. Did you notice this, too?

2. “In group setting, I’d like you to make space for others in conversations and meetings. It’s a necessary skill for your career development and helps utilize the full talents of the team. What do you think?”

Constructive feedback examples for poor communication skills

Communication can be challenging if employees are anxious about coming to you with questions or obstacles. Encourage communication by setting clear expectations and responding positively to updates.

3. “I really appreciated how you kept me up to date on X project this week — it helped me coordinate with our stakeholders, and I’m excited to share that we’re on track to launch. It’s also great to see your process. I’m impressed with the efficiencies you’re introducing.”

4.“I’m curious about where we are with Y project. If any issues have come up, it’s best that I know as soon as possible so I can help you get back on target. How about you shoot me daily updates just so I know where we are?”

Constructive feedback examples about time management and deadlines

Time management issues can signal disorganization or unrealistic ambition. In both cases, focus on this as an opportunity for professional growth.

5. “I can’t help but notice that this is the third deadline that’s caught up to you this month. I understand this is a fast-paced environment, and I think you’d be more effective if we rethought your time management strategies.”

6. “Thanks for letting me know you’re running behind schedule on this project. Let’s take a look at your goals and see how you’re spending your time — I bet there are opportunities for efficiencies there.”

Constructive feedback about missing goals

Your most engaged employees will already be disappointed in themselves for missing a goal. Acknowledge their disappointment and their hard work, and reframe the issue as a learning experience about goal-setting.

7. “It’d be great to see you take on fewer projects, or narrow your focus to be more attainable. What do you think?”

8. “Your work on X, Y and Z were solid, valuable accomplishments this quarter. I know you didn’t complete every goal you set, and that’s okay—it’s great to see you reach high. But I recognize it can be discouraging, too. So let’s take this opportunity to rethink your goals moving forward.”

Constructive feedback examples about attention to detail

Mistakes happen. When giving feedback, cite specific examples to help the employee see where you’re coming from. You can help provide a valuable perspective shift, and suggest a solution.

9. “You know I’ve always appreciated your grasp of our larger vision, and it’s great you see big-picture. But you’ve missed out on some smaller details in your last few projects, like X and Y. Unfortunately, that ultimately set the team back because they had to correct those oversights.”

10. “I’d love for you to keep that big-picture vision while working on those little blind spots. For your next project, let’s put together a detailed checklist of all your deliverables to make sure you don’t miss anything. Give it a shot, then let’s follow up and reassess from there.”

Constructive feedback examples for tardiness and absenteeism

In many cases, employees who are perpetually late or absent have difficulty self-organizing and may already feel embarrassed.

Resist focusing on the employee as the problem. Instead, call attention to the issue, and help redirect by focusing on the effect the tardiness or absenteeism has on the person’s ability to excel in their day-to-day tasks.

11. “Hey, I noticed you weren’t in our last few morning meetings. I’m concerned you may have missed some important information, and it’ll be difficult for other team members to sync up with you. I’d like to take the time to go over what you missed now. Then, let’s work out a plan together so this doesn’t continue to happen in the future.”

Constructive feedback examples for failing to problem-solve on one’s own

An effective employee feels empowered to take initiative and solve problems—and when they don’t, they can slow and distract others on the job.

Highlight their competencies to help them feel confident and stretch their wings.

12. “You did a fantastic job collaborating with your team last week, but I worry you may have derailed Jeanette by seeking their help with X. I’ve seen you work, and I’m confident if you’d thought about it a little longer, you could’ve come up with a solution on your own. I know you can do it. Do you believe you can?”

13. “It’d be great to see you tap into your resourcefulness and apply it to problem-solving before reaching out to others. Try sitting with an issue for 5 minutes before you reach out to anybody else. If this doesn’t work, touch base with me and we can come up with a solution.”

Constructive feedback when engagement seems low

If an employee’s performance has dropped, there could be any number of reasons—from personal life changes to disengagement. The underlying cause will change the conversation, so address the topic generally.

14. “I wanted to touch base and see how things are going. You don’t seem to be quite as engaged at work lately—is there something I can do to help you get back on track? I’d like to keep you happy here. Let’s set a time to review your goals and responsibilities and make sure we’re on the same page.”

Constructive feedback examples for a toxic attitude

Address toxicity in the workplace swiftly before employee negativity demoralizes your team. Emphasize you’re listening to the employee and want to be helpful. But also be clear about the impact of their behavior on the team and company.

15. “I’m glad we’re taking the time to touch base. I feel like you haven’t been as happy at work lately. How do you feel? Is there something I can do to help you have a better experience here?”

16. “I appreciate your input. When you have an issue, it’s helpful for me and the team if you share it with me so I can address it. That’s a positive, productive move. If you talk to your teammates about your issues, I can’t help you solve them, and it creates an atmosphere of negativity.”

Constructive feedback examples for office gossip

A little “harmless gossip” is rarely that. A few whispered words can rapidly snowball into morale-reducing drama. If you learn an employee has been gossiping, address them directly and privately.

17. “I know there are a lot of rumors flying around about X, and I know you’re concerned about it. I value your trust and contributions here, so I’d like to set the record straight and explain what I can.”

18. “I understand your feelings, and I know it’s frustrating when you feel your questions aren’t being answered. In the future, though, please bring your concerns directly to me. When you share them with your teammates, it creates a company culture of fear and negativity without providing answers.”

Constructive feedback examples about emotional intelligence and rudeness

In a dream world, IQ and EQ would go hand in hand. In busy offices, they can clash like titans. Avoid making the individual feel ganged up on—emphasize you’re listening.

19. “Hey, I wanted to touch base and see how you felt about your work this week. Samika mentioned that you used a sarcastic tone with them in a meeting and it made them uncomfortable. We need to be able to function as a team, and I was hoping to hear your side of the story to see if everything’s okay.”

20. “This morning you left our team meeting early. I could tell you were frustrated by the discussion, but walking out on your teammates doesn’t show them the same respect they showed you during the conflict. How can we find a solution moving forward?”

What is constructive feedback?

Constructive feedback is guidance that helps the recipient achieve a positive outcome.

Constructive feedback is corrective, but not critical.

A good litmus test if you’re about to deliver criticism or constructive feedback is to ask yourself: “Do I have the other person’s best interest at heart? How would I feel in their shoes, receiving this feedback?”

If your answers are, “I’m not sure,” and “probably terrible,” take a step back. Examine what you want to say. Is it necessary, or are you just blowing off steam? If it’s necessary, find a way to reframe it. Use our tips in this next section to deliver constructive feedback like a champion.

How do you give constructive feedback?

1. Clarify what you hope to achieve with the feedback

Ask yourself: “What is my desired outcome? How can I deliver feedback in a way the employee will be open to receiving while also guiding us toward that desired outcome?” Answering these two questions will help you determine both what to say and how to say it.

2. Be timely with feedback

Deliver feedback when it’s still relevant. The fresher, the better. This helps the other person make changes while they still have time to make an impact. “You did improve, but you were late to a lot of meetings early last quarter, and it was disrespectful to the team” doesn’t help anybody. It just makes the employee feel bad knowing their team was upset with them, and has no impact on their current behavior.

3. Give feedback face-to-face Let’s face it — giving constructive feedback can be awkward for both parties. But don’t give into the temptation to send hard feedback over Slack or email. It’s just too easy to misinterpret text. Deliver your feedback in real time, either in person or on video chat, so you can see how the other person is reacting, and answer any questions they might have. Plus, the ability to deliver constructive feedback is a powerful skill to have. Practice. It’s good for you.

4. Be specific in your feedback, and avoid scope-creep

Focus on one target area for constructive feedback at a time. If the person has a heaping pile of things that needs correcting, pick the highest-impact item and start there. Receiving too much constructive feedback at once can be overwhelming. At worst, it may make the employee shut down and resent you. And even in best case scenarios, the person may simply not know what to correct first, and be paralyzed or go off in the wrong direction. Also, as demonstrated in the constructive feedback examples above, use specific examples to support your feedback. Never give feedback based on your feelings alone.

5. Don’t be personal in your feedback

Give constructive feedback for the behavior, not for the person. An easy way to do this is to use the sentence structure, “When you [action],” or “Your performance on [project],” rather than using sentences that start with “You are.” A constructive feedback example about behavior is, “When you talk over Pam in the meetings, you’re making all the women on our team feel less comfortable speaking up.” As opposed to, “You’re really rude to people, and it’s dragging down the team.”

6. Explain the impact of the employee’s action

Help your employee by explaining the full impact of their actions—on you, on the team, on the company , and on their career. Let’s look at one of our employee feedback examples above, #18:“I understand your feelings, and I know it’s frustrating when you feel your questions aren’t being answered. In the future, though, please bring your concerns directly to me. When you share them with your teammates, it creates a company culture of fear and negativity without providing answers.” This manager could have stopped with, “Please bring your concerns directly to me.” But by going the extra step and explaining why the behavior needs correcting, they help the employee understand the issue clearly. It becomes a learning opportunity.

7. Offer action steps, and follow up

As a general rule, if you can’t offer actionable advice to help the person move toward a positive outcome, then your feedback isn’t feedback. It’s a gripe. Help the person figure out next steps. They may not always be the action steps you’d have picked for yourself. But try what works for them. Then, set a meeting in a week to touch base and see their progress.

What about positive feedback?

We often focus on redirecting negative behaviors. But recognizing and reinforcing positive workplace performance is just as important, if not more. Integrally, it helps create a culture in which feedback is welcomed rather than dreaded — a culture open to dynamic, positive growth.

Drive employee engagement by reinforcing positive behaviors with affirmative feedback and public recognition .

Here are some examples of positive employee actions you can acknowledge with meaningful feedback and encouragement:

Demonstrating leadership skills
Providing a morale booster
Being supportive and helpful
Attending training or pursuing professional development
Caring for the workspace
Being a safety leader
Facilitating a positive customer interaction
Taking initiative on a project
Receiving a positive customer review

The Three Pillars of Employee Experience ROI

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Homework: Feedback Examples

Scenario 1: Peer to Peer FeedbackInstructions: Watch the scenario and look for PINOTs, SIPs, STEMs, and powerful questions Scenario 2: Managing Up FeedbackInstructions: Watch the BEFORE scenario. Consider the circle of influence and use the strategies described in Module 6 to outline how you would have handled the situation differently. Then watch the AFTER video.…

IMAGES

13 ways to Use Assignment Feedback (2024)
101 Positive Feedback Examples (Copy and Paste) (2023)
Homework Feedback Editable Proforma (teacher made)
7 Keys for Providing Constructive Feedback to Teachers
How to give effective feedback
13 ways to Use Assignment Feedback (2024)

VIDEO

302 11 22 Homework Examples and Feedback
302 04 22 HOMEWORK Examples and Feedback
302 07 2022 Homework Examples and Feedback
Venn Diagrams and Set Operations Homework Examples (Math118)
Conceptual Physics Lectures, Chapter 19 Homework Examples
Exercises on Cross Product (Math 110C lesson 12.4 The Cross Product)

COMMENTS

51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students (2024)
General Constructive Feedback Examples for Students. The below examples are general templates that need to be edited so they are specific to the student's work. 1. You are on the right track. By starting to study for the exam earlier, you may be able to retain more knowledge on exam day. 2.
Positive Feedback for Students (with Examples)
Being told when they are incorrect can lead students to think that their work is too hard. They may want to just give up and stop trying. "That's a really great start, but perhaps you could…". "You're on the right track, but you're not quite there yet.". Positive phrases such as these help students see that learning is a journey ...
How to Give Positive Feedback to Students (With Examples From Teachers
They may want to give up and stop trying. Instead, saying things like: "That's a really great start, but perhaps you could…". "You're on the right track, but you're not quite there yet.". Positive phrases such as these help students see that learning is a journey, and there will be some speed bumps along the way!
16 Constructive Feedback Examples (And Tips For How to Use Them)
Check-in. Make an intentional effort to check in with the person on how they're doing in the respective area of feedback. For example, let's say you've given a teammate feedback on their presentation skills. Follow up on how they've invested in building their public speaking skills.
20 Ways To Provide Effective Feedback For Learning
Utilize the '4 questions' to guide your feedback. 7. Host a one-on-one conference. Providing a one-on-one meeting with a student is one of the most effective means of providing feedback. The student will look forward to having the attention and allows the opportunity to ask necessary questions.
Giving feedback: constructive criticism examples for students
Constructive criticism is a feedback method where educators target areas for improvement in students' work, learning, or behavior. For constructive criticism to be considered helpful to students, it needs to embody these three main characteristics: 1. Constructive criticism is specific. Educators identify precise points for students to ...
Meaningful Feedback for Students: 5 Research-Based Tips
5. Involve Learners in the Process. The importance of involving learners in the process of collecting and analyzing performance-based data cannot be understated. Pennebaker says, "Students must be given access to information about their performance.... At the broadest level, students need to know if they actually have mastered the material or ...
How to Give Feedback
Effective feedback is: 1) targeted, 2) communicates progress, 3) timely, and 4) gives students the opportunity to practice and implement the feedback received. In a broader sense, these aspects relate to thinking about where the student is going, how the student is doing now, and what the next step is.
Feedback for Learning
This resource offers strategies to make giving feedback easier and more effective. While there are specific technologies (discussed here) that can help facilitate feedback in an online or hybrid/HyFlex learning environment, the strategies presented here are applicable to any kind of course (e.g.: large lecture, seminar) and across any modality (e.g.: synchronous, asynchronous, fully online ...
63 Positive Comments for Students To Encourage and Motivate Them
24 other positive comments to give students. Here are 24 other positive and motivational comments you can give to your students or their parents to help encourage growth and continued excellence: This student is strong-willed. You have a positive attitude. Your love for learning is impressive.
PDF Feedback Strategies for Coaches and Administrators
Instructional Framework for CCRS, as one laudable example, describes ffive core instructional practices that help students meet College- and Career-Ready Standards. Furthermore, these core practices promote more coherent feedback that encourage faculty to target a common set of exemplary practices. Other indicators of powerful practices can
12 Feedback Examples To Give to Coworkers (Positive and Constructive)
Feedback is an intricate art form. But when you do it well, you can create deeper bonds with your coworkers, contribute to an energizing team culture, and build a more efficient workplace. Here's a quick rule for giving feedback: Positive comment. +. Constructive comment. +. Future hope or optimistic promise. It sounds like:
Constructive Feedback: Examples & Tips on How to Give It
For positive constructive feedback try to use an inspiring and friendly tone rather than casual and funny as it might decrease the effectiveness of your message. 3. Emotional intelligence is key. Further to the previous point emotions can run high during feedback sessions, particularly where criticism is concerned.
"Homework Feedback Is…": Elementary and Middle School ...
In general, findings showed some of the benefits of homework feedback for students. For example, Xu's studies using multilevel designs found that at student level teachers' homework feedback reported by 8th and 11th grade students was positively associated with students' interest in homework , students' reasons for doing homework ...
6 Tips for Managing the Feedback Workload
2. Promote thinking, but don't do the thinking: A common mistake in giving feedback—one that often takes a lot of time, and isn't the best use of that time—is providing it in a way that does the thinking for students, rather than pushing them to think and learn. An example of this is correcting every grammar or punctuation mistake in a paper—circling all the capital letters that ...
20 Constructive Feedback Examples for Performance Reviews
A constructive feedback example about behavior is, "When you talk over Pam in the meetings, you're making all the women on our team feel less comfortable speaking up.". As opposed to, "You're really rude to people, and it's dragging down the team.". 6. Explain the impact of the employee's action.
10 Examples of Constructive Feedback in the Workplace
Example 3: Employee misses a meeting unexpectedly. Sandra is the team's graphic designer and was so focused on her latest assignment that she forgot to attend today's community meeting. Emphasize her importance to the team and why attendance at the meeting matters. Example of constructive feedback: "Sandra, your passion and talent for graphic ...
30 Positive Feedback Examples: Best Practices & Examples
30 Positive Feedback Examples. 1. Exceptional Work. Acknowledging a colleague's exceptional work can motivate them to continue to produce high-quality work and inspire others to strive for excellence as well. It shows that their efforts are valued and recognized, which can boost their morale and confidence.
10 Positive Feedback Examples for Employee Recognition
5. Employee is submitting high-quality work. Ava finished all of her work on time and paid attention to the details. Make it clear she is meeting your company's expectations. Positive feedback you can give: "Ava, your work looks great! It's clear that you care about your work and take the time to do it correctly.
Homework: Feedback Examples
Manager to Direct Report Feedback Examples 2 lessons, 1 quiz Module 3: Improve the Chances of Your Feedback Being Well Received. Shift To a More Compassionate, Business-Focused Mindset ... Homework: Feedback Examples 2 lessons, 1 quiz Module 7: Review. Review: Give the feedback you've been working on throughout this course!
27 Great Ways to Respond to Feedback (Positive, Negative)
Here is a comprehensive guide to responding to feedback, with sample responses tailored to fit a wide variety of situations. 27 ways to respond to feedback. Wow, thank you. That's so kind. I really appreciate you saying that. Thanks, it's really nice to hear my efforts being acknowledged. I feel a bit embarrassed, that's so nice.
20 Examples Of Feedback In The Workplace (2024 Examples)
Example 2: Employee is contributing to meetings. During meetings, Raj has shared many new ideas that are helpful for the team. Let him know how this is beneficial. Feedback: "Thank you for being prepared for our meetings. By coming to each meeting with thoughtful ideas, you help us improve our processes."
H.R.8315
Citation Subscribe Share/Save Site Feedback Home > Legislation > 118th Congress > H.R.8315 H.R.8315 - To amend the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 to prevent foreign adversaries from exploiting United States artificial intelligence and other enabling technologies, and for other purposes.
College campus protests: Encampments cleared from at least 3 ...
Pro-Palestinian encampments were cleared from at least three college campuses early Friday, marking some of the latest examples of schools using law enforcement to respond to demonstrations that ...
Entity list: 37 Chinese companies hit with US trade restrictions over
The Biden administration added 37 Chinese entities to a trade restriction list on Thursday, including some for allegedly supporting the suspected spy balloon that flew over the United States last ...

51 Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

Why Give Constructive Feedback?

How to Give Constructive Feedback

General Constructive Feedback Examples for Students

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16 constructive feedback examples — and tips for how to use them

What is constructive feedback?

What is constructive feedback?

16 constructive feedback examples to use

Constructive feedback examples about communication skills

Constructive feedback examples about collaboration

Constructive feedback examples about time management

Constructive feedback examples about boundaries

Constructive feedback examples about managing

8 tips for providing constructive feedback

Start giving effective constructive feedback

Elevate your communication skills

Madeline Miles

5 types of feedback that make a difference (and how to use them)

Constructive criticism examples for students: how to give better feedback

What is constructive criticism?

1. Constructive criticism is specific

2. Constructive criticism is actionable

3. Constructive criticism is beneficial to students

Is constructive criticism considered positive or negative?

Constructive criticism examples: ways to give better feedback to students

Use constructive criticism to identify students’ specific points for improvement

How to implement this: Use the START (Situation, Task, Action, Result, and Transform) framework

Use constructive criticism to depersonalize feedback to students

How to implement this: Use the Third Point method

Use constructive criticism as part of reflective dialogue with students

How to implement this: Use the GROW (Goals, Reality, Options, and Will) framework

Use constructive criticism to immediately address students’ misconceptions

How to implement this: Use the Feedforward method

Train students to use constructive criticism for peer feedback

How do to implement this: Regularly use peer-to-peer feedback for assignments

Want to try Kialo Edu with your class?

How to Give Feedback

Why is feedback important?

What constitutes effective feedback?

Targeted feedback

Communicates progress

Opportunity to practice

Timing of feedback

Strategies to implement feedback in the classroom

Look for common errors among the class

Prioritize feedback

Incorporate real-time group feedback.

Utilize peer feedback

Create opportunities for students to reflect on feedback

Feedback for Learning

On this page:

Reflecting on Your Feedback Practices

The CTL is here to help!

Feedback for Learning: What and Why

Types of Feedback

Characteristics of Effective Feedback

Strategies for Giving Effective Feedback

Create a culture of feedback

Partner with your students

Align your feedback with the learning objectives

Keep your feedback focused and simple

Consider the timing of your feedback

Change up your mode of delivery

Facilitating Feedback with Columbia-Supported Technologies

CourseWorks (Canvas)

Gradebook Comments

Quiz Tool Feedback

SpeedGrader

Gradescope

Resources & References

The CTL researches and experiments.

Constructive feedback

What is constructive feedback?

Career development plan template