Exploring Students’ Perceived Needs and Ideas About Feedback in Online Learning Environments

Although research has found that students value timely, formative feedback, it’s unknown how students’ prior experiences influence their expectations for feedback in online learning environments. Two workshops were conducted to examine college students’ perceptions and preferences about feedback during traditional and online instruction. Survey, short response, and interview questions were used to collect students’ self-reported experiences in receiving and using feedback with a variety of work products (e.g., essays) in traditional academic experiences, examining their self-reported challenges and needs during online learning tasks. Students collaboratively worked to design storyboards that depicted optimal feedback environments for an online instructional system. Results show that students’ (positive and negative) prior experiences with traditional feedback guide their perceived preferences regarding online feedback. Students were aware of many specific challenges that they faced during online research, and expressed a strong desire for technologies that could support identification of valid and relevant online content. Self-reported, online feedback needs were consistent with successful features of digital learning environments that have been shown to support deeper learning. This research suggests that students’ perceived needs and preferences have a strong impact on the degree to which they are likely to value and utilize feedback in online learning environments.