Introduction

The potential of feedback to enhance learning has long been emphasized (Hattie and Timperley 2007). However, to bring the potential into full play, there still exist challenges to be addressed, since feedback information itself does not necessarily entail improvement in learning as it only provides affordances, not assurance for academic success (Nicol 2021). The prerequisite for students to reap the benefits from feedback is students’ volition and agency to proactively interpret and act on the information received, which was termed as student feedback literacy (Sutton 2012). Student feedback literacy is not something inbred, but progressive and experiential (Yan and Carless 2021). It is an acquired capacity built up over time and sharpened with constant practice (Hoo et al. 2021). Boud and Dawson (2021) argued that “teachers need to recognize the need for student feedback literacy and create circumstances in which this can be developed” (p.10). Therefore, recent literature is calling upon teachers to make the cultivation of student feedback literacy an integral part of their teaching practice. The call itself, however, is not enough to lead to modified pedagogical practices which deliberately incorporate student feedback literacy into daily teaching. Carless (2023) raised doubts about whether “teachers involved in enacting feedback have been brought along with the progress in the literature” (p.3). It remains unclear whether such calls have been heard and answered by teachers. What are their perceptions about cultivating student feedback literacy? How do they create circumstances to facilitate different aspects of student feedback literacy? To date, few empirical studies have been conducted to probe into these questions. In response to this gap, the current study explored teacher perceptions and practices about cultivating student feedback literacy through semi-structured interviews and classroom observation.

Literature Review

Student feedback literacy

The evolution of feedback from being taken merely as teacher-generated information about the merits and weaknesses of students’ performances to a student-centered action-oriented process necessitates and highlights student agency in eliciting and interpreting feedback information before taking actions to effect changes in their learning (Carless 2020). In consequence, the passing decade saw a burgeoning research interest in student feedback literacy, striving to identify the detailed features of those best beneficiaries of feedback (Carless and Boud 2018; Sutton 2012) and the mediating factors influencing students’ feedback uptake (Han and Xu 2019; Winstone et al. 2017).

The notion “student feedback literacy” was first explicitly put forward by Sutton (2012), conceptualizing it from epistemological, ontological and practical dimensions, which stood as a beachhead of relevant research. Carless and Boud (2018) progressed the concept and proposed the most frequently quoted definition of student feedback literacy as “the understandings, capacities and dispositions needed to make sense of information and use it to enhance work or learning strategies”, comprised of four interrelated components “appreciating feedback, making judgement, managing affect and taking action” (pp.1–2). Molloy et al. (2020) constructed a nuanced framework of student feedback literacy from a learner’s lens, which captured a panorama of the features characterized by feedback-literate students, encompassing cognitive and behavioral dimensions classified into 7 groups with 31 categories. Recent feedback literature “envisaged reconceptualizing feedback literacy as dynamic, situated practices” (Carless 2023), manifesting great attention to the ecological, social-cultural or sociomaterial perspective, highlighting the contextual factors that may exert influence on student feedback literacy (Chong 2021; Gravett 2022; Pitt and Winstone 2023).

Despite variations arising from diverse perspectives and categorizations, scholars have generally converged on the significance of student feedback literacy in optimizing the benefits derived from feedback activities. It is important to note, however, that student feedback literacy is not an inbuilt ability ready to do its share; rather, it is a capacity that can be honed through consistent practice (Carless and Boud 2018; Molloy et al. 2020). Numerous reports highlighted instances of suboptimal student feedback literacy, falling short of teachers’ expectations. Teachers expressed dissatisfaction with students’ limited proficiency in feedback literacy, as evidenced by their inclination toward specific corrective feedback, passivity in seeking feedback information, neglect of received feedback, reluctance to interpret feedback, and an inability to translate feedback into actionable improvements (Bailey and Garner 2010; Carless and Boud 2018; Nicol and McCallum 2022).

Nevertheless, student feedback literacy is unlikely to prosper in the absence of teachers’ purposeful cultivation through repeated and carefully-sequenced practice (Kleijn 2021). With the pivotal role of teachers in promoting student feedback literacy unanimously acknowledged (Carless and Boud 2018; Chong 2021; Sutton 2012), the topic of feedback interventions triggered a surge of research interest.

Feedback interventions to cultivate student feedback literacy

Student feedback literacy “needs practicing in different settings over time and with appropriate feedback interventions to refine the practice” (Malecka et al. 2022, p.911). Related studies teem with various repositioned pedagogical practices so that feedback enabling processes can be operationalized and embedded within the curriculum (Han and Xu 2019; Hoo et al. 2021; Wood 2022).

Teacher-orchestrated or technology-mediated self-assessment and peer review (Yan and Carless 2021; Nicol and McCallum 2022), discussion and analysis of exemplars, rubrics, or criteria supported through digital affordances (Carless 2020) are frequently suggested practices. A further step ahead in respect to the comments received from teachers or peers is written response or rebuttal, feedback request form or interactive coversheet as prompts for students to take action (Malecka et al. 2022). In a more holistic way, Winstone et al. (2019) proposed a combination of interventions‒–“feedback toolkit” composed of feedback guide, glossary, portfolio and workshop. Kleijn (2021) even constructed an instructional model with detailed guidelines to lead students in different stages of feedback processes by way of lucid description about how to elicit, interpret, apply and respond to feedback information.

Empirical investigations into feedback interventions have consistently yielded positive outcomes, affirming their efficacy in enhancing student feedback literacy (Tripodi et al. 2021; Winstone et al. 2019; Xu and Carless 2016). These interventions had the potential to enhance students’ understandings and appreciation of the feedback process, facilitating a realization of the importance of their agency. Furthermore, they contributed to a leap of students’ confidence, the development of resilience in the face of negative comments, and improved engagement and subsequent actions. Studies in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context echoed these findings. Ma et al. (2021) showcased the perceived effects of learning-oriented online assessment in L2 writing, demonstrating its role in fostering students’ feedback literacy in terms of appreciation, evaluative judgment, and future actions. In a parallel vein, Man et al. (2022) investigated the potential utility of peer review training activities through interviews with EFL students. The study identified five components of feedback literacy that appeared to undergo refinement through these activities.

However, the literature also outlined several limitations associated with these interventions. Notably, poor student participation or engagement posed a significant challenge, particularly when teachers invested considerable time and effort in implementing these interventions (Winstone et al. 2019). Additionally, there was a recognized need for improved design in feedback interventions to optimize their impact (Winstone et al. 2017).

As evidenced in a scoping review conducted by Little et al. (2023), the majority of studies on feedback interventions are concentrated within health-related fields, including psychology, health sciences, and medicine, with a scarcity in language and cultural studies. In the limited studies situated in an EFL context, there is a discernible prevalence of the student perspective (Ma et al. 2021; Man et al. 2022), while the perspectives of teachers are notably underrepresented. Moreover, the utility of feedback interventions is premised on an assumption that teachers deem it necessary to repurpose their teaching to incorporate the cultivation of student feedback literacy. This preconceived supposition that teachers naturally embed effective design of feedback processes in their courses was questionable (Molloy et al. 2020), since apart from possessing the pertaining knowledge and expertise, teachers first need to perceive the need to purposefully incorporate student feedback literacy within the curriculum (Hoo et al. 2021; Malecka et al. 2022). Have teachers perceived this need? What have they already been doing to cultivate student feedback literacy? Understandings about these questions will present illuminating insights for future endeavors. Nevertheless, these questions haven’t been adequately addressed.

Research questions

The literature review reveals scarce focus on teachers’ perceptions and actual practices about the cultivation of student feedback literacy. Therefore, this study sought to answer two questions.

Question 1: What are university EFL teachers’ perceptions about cultivating student feedback literacy?

Question 2: What are university EFL teachers’ feedback enabling practices to cultivate student feedback literacy? How may these practices facilitate the development of student feedback literacy?

Contexts and participants

In China, English language acquisition has maintained enduring significance, firmly embedded within the educational landscape, beginning as early as primary school and continuing throughout the university years. This unwavering commitment to English education is exemplified by the fact that only a selected minority of students with exceptionally high placement test scores are granted the privilege of waiving College English courses, a concession available in only a handful of institutions. English remains a mandatory subject for the majority of university students, with national standardized examinations assessing students’ English proficiency—such as the College English Test-Band 4 (CET-4) or the Test for English Majors- Band 4 (TEM-4)—a compulsory requirement.

Within the realm of humanities disciplines, a prime objective of English teaching is the cultivation of self-regulated learners. A key instrument for achieving this aim is the development of students’ feedback literacy (Pitt and Winstone 2023), a responsibility primarily vested in educators. Consequently, our study focused on university-level EFL teachers, who are pivotal in bringing this dimension to the forefront of English education.

In the recruitment of participants, we employed convenience sampling based on their accessibility and willingness to share their perspectives, choosing participants from one recently upgraded local university in Shandong Province with a total of about 60 EFL teachers. Guided by the principle that “individuals who differ are selected so that diverse perspectives—a goal of good qualitative research—are built into the design” (Creswell 2014, p. 114), we also took into account the demographic diversity of the participants. Therefore, we purposefully included participants of varying genders and educational backgrounds, who taught diverse courses with different years of teaching experience to ensure maximal variation and guarantee the diversity of the samples.

Adhering to recommended practices with a sample size of 3 to 10 participants in phenomenological qualitative studies (Creswell 2014), our sample consisted of 9 teachers, anonymized as T1 to T9 to protect their privacy. Among the participants, five held Master’s degrees, two possessed PhDs, and one had Bachelor’s degrees, mirroring the educational composition of English teachers within the university. Our cohort encompassed both experienced and novice teachers, whose teaching experience spanned from 3 to 19 years. They offered instruction across a spectrum of English courses. six participants taught English majors basic courses such as English writing, comprehensive courses like advanced English, and optional courses like English interpretation. Additionally, three participants taught College English to non-English majors, representing diverse disciplines, including education, business management, computer science, and psychology. Detailed participant information is presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Demographics of participants.
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Data collection and analysis

Data was primarily collected through semi-structured interviews about how the participants described their own perceptions and practices relating to the cultivation of student feedback literacy. “Students are dependent on teachers having a good appreciation of feedback” (Boud and Dawson 2021, p.2). Therefore, the interview questions began with inquiries into teachers’ understandings about feedback. To test the research protocols, a pilot interview was conducted with one non-participant teacher to make necessary adaptions. One important issue was gleaned for refinement. As the term “student feedback literacy” was coined only a decade ago, though it has won recognition from researchers, in-the-field teachers may be unfamiliar with it. So in the formal interviews, clarification about the term ‘student feedback literacy” as a capacity to take full advantage of various kinds of feedback information for learning enhancement was made before asking the participants whether they deliberately cultivated student feedback literacy. To ensure smooth communication, the interviews were conducted in Chinese lasting an average of approximately 25 min. With informed consent first obtained from the participants, the interviews were all recorded simultaneously, transcribed verbatim through an automatic speech recognition platform (www.iflyrec.com) and then checked by the first author.

Given the potential for demand effects in data acquired through self-report methods, whereby the participants provide responses that they consider the researchers desire, how the participants claim they behave may not be consistent with what they actually do (Winstone et al. 2019). Therefore, to validate and complement what the participants reported in the interviews, classroom observation of two to six sessions for each participant was conducted, which spanned multiple phases of a unit covering lead-in, explanatory lectures and exercises, yielding supplementary data in the form of field notes.

Following Gao and Zhang’s (2020) five-step data analysis model as our guiding framework, our analytical process commenced with a thorough review of interview transcripts. This initial step aimed to ensure consistency in our understanding, and any uncertainties or ambiguities were promptly addressed through online exchanges with the participants.

Moving on to the second step, data coding, we adopted a rigorous approach to enhance trustworthiness. Both authors independently coded one transcript, aligning our coding with the research questions. Any disparities that arose were resolved through iterative negotiations. Our coding approach combined elements of deductive and inductive thematic analysis, drawing inspiration from Carless and Boud’s (2018) four interconnected components and the nuanced aspects elucidated by Molloy, Boud, and Henderson (2020). This deductive approach led to the emergence of key codes such as ‘feedback appreciation’, ‘building evaluative judgment’, ‘addressing affective needs’, ‘propelling further action’, ‘utilizing feedback for improvement’ and ‘eliciting information’. The inductive component of our analysis brought forth novel insights, leading to the identification of codes that had received less attention in prior research, including ‘feedback as students’ response’ and ‘exercises related to TEM and CET’.

For the field notes we gathered from classroom observation, we also started with careful and repeated reading to spot and label feedback-related behaviors and activities. We then allocated these practices to codes that we had generated in the analysis of interview transcripts. We discerned the possibility of new codes if the practice failed to correlate to existing codes, thereby producing codes like ‘initiate casual conversations with students at breaks’ and ‘share personal experience’. With all the codes from the analysis of interview transcripts and field notes, we proceeded to the next step.

At the third step, wherein themes were generated, we organized these codes into broader categories. For instance, ‘feedback as student response’ and ‘feedback as teacher comments’ were amalgamated under the overarching category ‘feedback as a two-fold concept’. This, in turn, was incorporated, alongside ‘feedback as assessment’, into a higher-level thematic category termed ‘teachers’ orientations to feedback’ during the fourth step, which involved categorizing themes.

Before embarking on the final step of producing our research report, we revisited the initial four steps. This involved incorporating newly identified codes, resolving any overlapping issues, engaging in discussions regarding re-categorization, and revising certain code labels. The resulting refined coding scheme was then shared with the participants, a crucial step known as member checking, aimed at enhancing the interpretive validity of our findings (Lincoln and Guba 1985).

Findings

Teacher perceptions about the cultivation of student feedback literacy

Teachers’ perceptions about cultivating student feedback literacy were interpreted into two themes: teachers’ orientations to feedback and teachers’ awareness about the cultivation of student feedback literacy, embracing four subthemes and more detailed items, as illustrated in Table 2.

Table 2 Teacher perceptions about the cultivation of student feedback literacy.
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Teachers’ orientations to feedback

For feedback to drive student learning, “all parties involved need to understand the common enterprise in which they are engaged and appreciate the ultimate purpose of the activity” (Boud and Dawson 2021, p.10). However, the interviews revealed an obvious lack of such understandings. The participants offered diverse answers in reply to the question “what does the term feedback mean to you”, yet all hinting teacher centrality and reinforcing teachers’ responsibility to make assessment about student performances.

Feedback is teachers’ assessment about students’ performance. (T3)

In class, teachers make assessment about student answers. That is class feedback. Teachers also provide comments on students’ homework……… feedback includes in-class feedback and homework feedback. (T4)

When elaborating on their understandings about feedback, three participants saw beyond single-sided teacher comments and held feedback as a two-fold practice, comprising student responses to teachers’ lectures as well. This understanding implied more challenges for teachers. Apart from being feedback information providers, they are supposed to be highly sensitive and responsive to students’ feedback information by reading the doubt in their eyes, encouraging further inquiries and inviting suggestions. Regrettably, this seemingly more holistic two-fold connotation of feedback still located teachers at the center of feedback process.

Feedback is what you can infer from eye contact, facial expression or students’ answers to questions. If students can effectively answer your questions, er…. If you get a glimpse of relief, delight or nodding after your explanation, those are positive feedback that they can follow you.…. In addition, I also make comment about students’ presentation in class…. (T2)

Despite divergences in details, all participants reached a consensus that in the feedback process, teachers were in a predominant position with student agency neglected. When faced with the researchers’ follow-up question regarding student role, all participants seemed to be at a loss. From classroom observation, a typical practice common among the participants which further confirmed teachers’ negligence in students’ agency was how they approached the translation exercises. It was usually the case that the teacher became an assessor of student answers pointing out mistakes in students’ translation, and a supplier of reference answers, leaving no time for students to reflect, assimilate and try new ways and rendering them to be passive recipients.

Teachers’ awareness about cultivating student feedback literacy

The participants’ lack of awareness about the cultivation of student feedback literacy was echoed by converging evidences from the interviews and classroom observation.

In the interviews, when asked whether they consciously cultivate student feedback literacy, most participants gave immediate denial without hesitation. Their inadvertence was a logical outcome of their conventional perspective of feedback as teacher-directed.

An alternative rationale for their limited awareness can be attributed to insufficient consideration given to feedback as a component of the learning process. This oversight has resulted in a neglect of the development of student feedback literacy at the policy level, as the guidance provided by the Ministry of Education does not encompass the concept of feedback literacy. T8 emphasized this point explicitly.

Purposefully enhance students’ ability to use feedback information to promote learning? No, I never thought about that. And nobody urges me to. Even the Curriculum Standards issued by the Ministry of Education doesn’t mention student feedback literacy. (T8)

Department or institutional orientation also acted as a mediating factor shaping teachers’ negligence. The participants faced substantial pressure stemming from a multitude of demands, necessitating a careful evaluation of priorities in consideration of the importance and feasibility of different tasks. Tasks directly tied to teachers’ professional qualifications and salary were undeniably prioritized over endeavors related to cultivating student feedback literacy, which were not obligatory.

I believe few of my colleagues will spend much time on careful design of feedback activities to cultivate student feedback literacy since it is time demanding. As a teacher in a newly-upgraded university, we are confronted with great pressure from various aspects. Apart from completing enough class hours, we are also academic advisor, thesis supervisor and job instructor to different groups of students. The greatest headache is from research. With so many tasks pressing on the teachers, how can we spare time and energy to what is not a mandatory requirement? (T1)

The following field note from classroom observation also indicated that many opportunities to sharpen student feedback literacy slipped due to lack of awareness. T3 could have done more than merely praise the student in terms of efforts and enhancement. A better choice was to seize the chance to scaffold students in cognition, by stressing the potential of feedback information in promoting learning, inculcating the significance of active engagement to extract desirable outcomes from feedback and encouraging the whole class to actively seek feedback.

After T3 commented on the students’ writings, one student resubmitted the revised draft for more suggestions. The revised draft exhibited striking improvement, which T3 displayed to the whole class together with its original version and spoke highly of the student. (Field notes)

Teachers’ intuitive unsystematic feedback practices

Teacher perceptions are significant predictors of the actions they take in their teaching practice (Chen et al. 2021). Failing to position students as active seekers and consumers of feedback and neglecting students’ proactive role in making feedback effective resulted in feedback practices organized in an unsystematic way devoid of deliberate endeavors to cultivate student feedback literacy, as nine participants succinctly acknowledged.

I don’t make specific plans beforehand. I just comment on what students present in class if necessary. (T6)

I don’t deliberately design feedback interventions as I plan my teaching content. I think they come naturally as a result of my observation of students’ responses. (T9)

However, it doesn’t necessarily follow that without a clear consciousness, teachers just stepped aside as onlookers in the evolution of student feedback literacy. Further inquiries displayed their subconscious efforts to develop student feedback literacy in terms of cognitive steering, behavioral regulation and affective support, further categorized into five subthemes with concrete practices identified under each category (See Table 3), which are to be elucidated in the next section.

Table 3 Participants’ subconscious efforts to cultivate student feedback literacy.
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Teachers’ subconscious efforts to promote student feedback literacy

Cognitive steering

Cognitive steering offered by the participants scaffolded students to “commit to feedback as improvement” (Molloy et al. 2020, p.530). They advocated feedback as a mighty contributor to improvement and encouraged students to be active seekers of feedback information. However, indications about the prospective benefits of feedback through active engagement was merely an occasional option.

I didn’t specifically communicate to the students about the importance of feedback, but mentioned it incidentally. For instance, I once told them “It is not bad to make mistakes now. if I point them out and you make corrections accordingly, that signifies progress. Otherwise, maybe these mistakes become the last straw to overwhelm you in important exams.” (T4)

Classroom observation showed that encouragement for students to “elicit information to improve learning” (Molloy et al. 2020, p.535) was a formalized routine question “any questions?”, eliciting no response from the students on most occasions. As evidenced, teachers’ guidance in cognitive steering was carried out in a restrained and casual way, which obviously demanded more strategic efforts.

Behavioral regulation

To regulate student behavior in response to feedback, the participants actively encouraged students to take follow-up actions and endeavored to foster students’ evaluative judgment during pedagogical activities.

To press for students’ follow-up action, one effective way popular with the participants was required resubmission of revised work, which compelled students to process feedback information and make adaptions and corrections. Feedback activities linked to exercises targeting at important tests were another common practice especially suited to Chinese contexts, where centrality of grades is deeply rooted. Grades serve as powerful indicators of academic success and signify more chances for desired jobs (Carless 2020), rendering feedback based on test-oriented exercises a great impetus for actions to improve, which was explicated by seven participants, mentioning TEM-4, CET-4 and the terminal exam.

I usually sharpen students’ writing by doing writing practices based on TEM-4, and make it a must to resubmit after receiving my feedback. Most students can take it seriously. (T3)

When feedback is provided at an opportune moment and can be effectively utilized in subsequent tasks and diverse settings, it transforms into a motivational tool for students (Nicol 2021). In this context, two participants responsible for teaching English majors shared their commitment to meticulously constructing feedback comments. They placed particular emphasis on ensuring that the feedback was not only pertinent and transferable but also timely, aiming to tailor it to individual requirements and sequence it effectively.

I pay special attention to the usefulness of my comment. My comments should be able to guide students in doing similar assignments. Sometimes before asking the students to do the next task, I’ll reiterate the problems to be addressed in the past similar tasks. (T1)

Gathering from the teaching experience of this course in the last two years, I realize students are more likely to take feedback information seriously when they get down to writing their graduation thesis. Therefore, the detailed requirements of thesis writing are explained, experimented, discussed and commented on after they start their graduation thesis. (T5)

With the positive role of peer review, discussion about rubrics and exemplars universally acknowledged in the field of assessment (Han and Xu 2020; Wang 2017), these activities were popularized among the participants. But as the participants noted the implementation of these activities was hindered or facilitated by the course and students’ English proficiency. In our study, writing turned out to be a course which welcomed peer reviews, echoing the majority of studies about peer review situated in the writing course (e.g., Weng et al. 2022).

Peer review is common in my writing class, but not that often in reading. Writing tasks are assigned with detailed requirements about word count, content, writing style, etc. Peer review begins with a recall of task requirements and a discussion about assessment rubrics. (T2)

When teaching writing, I first familiarize students with assessment rubrics of TEM-4 writing, and then discuss exemplars with them to learn about what a good composition looks like. (T3)

Students’ low English proficiency was claimed to be an obstacle to the smooth implementation of peer review, contradicting with the results in previous studies (Yu and Hu 2016), which demonstrated the likelihood that feedback by low proficiency students could be conducive to the writings of their peers, even those of a higher proficiency. This misalignment invites more inquiry into the details in implementation resulting in the difference, which was not the focus of our current study. Peer review training on the student part (Schunn and Wu 2019) and the exertion of teacher patience fortified with rational goals for feedback practices (Zhang 2022) may be approaches to tackling this problem.

In doing translation exercises, peer review was gradually canceled since it is restrained by student English proficiency. Some students depend solely on the reference answer. If other student’s translation is different from the reference answer, it is not good. (T6)

Classroom observations coincided with the participants’ accounts. A diverse range of activities aimed at prompting students to take action or fostering their evaluative judgment were witnessed. In nearly all courses, except for English interpretation and Academic writing, instructors tended to guide their lectures, exercises, or comments towards significant tests like TEM-4 or CET-4, which, to some degree, served as a motivational factor for students to engage in further developmental efforts. In Listening class dictations and Writing class, teachers frequently used exemplars, referenced rubrics, and organized peer reviews to enhance students’ evaluative judgment.

The observed classroom activities revealed a nuanced picture, indicating that feedback practices exhibited a course-dependent nature. Notably, the English interpretation class, which was expected to involve more feedback activities, surprisingly presented fewer opportunities for students to enhance their feedback literacy. This occurrence may be attributed to teacher perceptions and student characteristics, emphasizing the intricate and context-dependent nature of feedback. This underscores the need for deeper exploration into the mediators of feedback in future studies.

Affective support

Our study highlighted EFL teachers’ awareness about the importance of teacher-student rapport and their efforts to provide affective supports. They struggled hard to balance between offering objective comments and students’ face-saving needs and prepare them for negative comments. Their comments about students’ performance were encouragement-oriented with criticism candy-coated as suggested by Smith (2021); whole-class assessment about overall performance was preferred to avoid awkwardness of those poor performers.

I think relations on an equal footing are crucial. If teachers are in a position of unchallenged authority, how could it be possible that students are willing to seek feedback from the teachers proactively? (T5)

Dominating my comments are inspiring words. Overstrict words may sap their enthusiasm in learning. After all, we are to help them improve, not to discourage them. I often tell them ‘Pointing out mistakes is not to criticize, but to make things better.’ ‘You have done well enough, but I am a demanding teacher.’ (T7)

The results from classroom observation were congruent with that from the interviews. “Feedback talk” (verbal feedback in class, Heron et al. 2021) from all participants exhibited special care in the affective dimension with affirmation, encouragement, recognition of efforts, soothing words to mitigate awkwardness, etc.

The participants’ attempts to develop a harmonious teacher-student rapport were also witnessed during classroom observation. Of all the 48 sessions of classroom observation, in 31 sessions teachers were about 10 min earlier in class, initiating casual conversations with students as they walked around the classroom or played their favorite English songs to enjoy with students. Teachers sometimes shared their own experience at appropriate time which appeared to narrow the distance between teachers and students. Despite all these efforts, the teacher-student rapport seemed to be far from satisfactory as complained by the participants.

With more than 100 students in one class, I don’t think I can know the students well. (T8)

I feel a distance with my students. I don’t know them well. I am not sure whether a student is too sensitive for negative comments… (T9)

The distancing between teacher and students was partly the adverse consequence of the traditional hierarchical teacher-student relationship, reinforced by the large class size and limited interactions mainly constrained to in-class time. More dialogical feedback assisted by mobile-based communication may be a solution for more interactions to occur.

Discussion

This study investigated the perceptions and practices of 9 university EFL teachers about cultivating student feedback literacy. Discussions about the findings are to shed light on the steps needed to tune teaching practice to optimize the cultivation of student feedback literacy.

Concerning the first research question, our study revealed that the participants remained to share a traditional perspective about feedback as teacher-oriented, underplaying students’ responsibility in actively decoding and acting on the received feedback information, thus failing to perceive the necessity of incorporating student feedback literacy in pedagogical activities. The result was in line with the findings of Jiang and Yu (2021) demonstrating teachers’ inclination to see feedback as information transmission. It pointed to the need for a conceptual shift of feedback from product to process (Heron et al. 2021), from teacher-centered to student-oriented as was proposed in a number of recent studies (e.g., Carless and Winstone 2020; Molloy et al. 2020). Recognition of students’ crucial role in the feedback process is a prerequisite for the cultivation and development of student feedback literacy, just as Boud and Dawson (2021) urged teachers to fully understand what feedback processes require to contribute to student learning. Another reason exposed in our study was shortage of policy guidance at the national level and lack of incentives at the institutional level, which chimed with the ideas behind “feedback regimes” asserted by Carless (2023) and “systemic feedback literacy” proposed by Pitt and Winstone (2023). As feedback processes are enacted in a broader sociomaterial context (Gravett 2022), administrators at different levels should put the cultivation of student feedback literacy high on the agenda, make specific plans for the formulation and enactment of relevant supportive policies to integrate student feedback literacy in the curriculum, and simultaneously extend teacher feedback literacy by professional training programs. The development of a feedback culture that esteems and supports efforts in feedback practices, fortified by the allocation of suitable resources, has the potential to exert a positive influence and gradually reshape teachers’ perspectives.

As to the second question, feedback enabling practices turned out to be loosely organized occasional teaching decisions, fulfilling “a natural and intuitive teacher role” (Carless 2023, p.7). This result from the teacher’s lens concurred with student perspectives about feedback they received in a study by Han and Xu (2019), describing teacher’s feedback practices as “casual and even haphazard” (p.192). It implied a deficiency in teacher feedback literacy, especially in the design dimension, which is an indispensable component of teacher feedback literacy comprising 3 interwoven dimensions: design, relational and pragmatic. Starting with a change in perception, teachers realize the necessity to cultivate student feedback literacy and ingeniously structure the course with favorable feedback opportunities for its development. The design and implementation of feedback activities are also a process to exercise teachers’ skills and capacities in feedback, enhancing teacher feedback literacy, thus forming a virtuous circle where both partners win (Carless and Winstone 2020).

The participants’ subconscious efforts in feedback enabling practices offered support and direction across three key dimensions: cognitive steering, behavioral regulation and affective support. Remarkably, these efforts unintentionally fostered the development of student feedback literacy, despite originating from somewhat unsystematic feedback activities. Within these dimensions, the participants stood out in providing affective support. They exercised great care to mitigate the emotional backwash (Ryan and Henderson 2018) and narrow the distance with their students. This heightened sensitivity to students’ emotional well-being may be a natural reflection of the broader societal context, where the mental health of adolescents has garnered significant attention. It is advisable that teachers should not only help students acquire the skills to emotionally process critical, even negative, feedback but also remain attuned to students’ individual interpretations in this process.

The deficiency the participants exhibited in cognitive steering is a reflection as well as a consequence of the teachers’ traditional perspective of feedback as teacher-centered information transmission. This result implied for an urgent need for teachers to update their understandings about feedback, since the purview of teachers constituted a large part of the “contextual dimension” of student feedback literacy (Chong 2021). In addition, this renewal in concept should be followed by more deliberate endeavors from the teachers to provide cognitive steering for their students, so as to address the discrepancies between teacher expectations and student views which were proved to be an impediment for student engagement in feedback (Smith 2021). This echoed Carless’ (2020) move that constructing shared perspectives via cognitive steering should be a further element of support in promoting student feedback literacy. Teachers should explicitly explain the nature and provide convincing rationales for the learning-enhancing role of feedback to build student awareness about the necessity of devoting more time and energy to feedback engagement and mobilize students for multiple roles as active agents so that students feel oriented and empowered in the feedback process.

In terms of behavioral regulation, one important but neglected practice is self-assessment, which was consistently recommended by many researchers as an efficient way to develop student feedback literacy based on the reciprocal interplay between the two (Hoo et al. 2021; Malecka et al. 2022), since core behavioral elements involved in self-assessment are compatible with feedback process (Yan and Carless 2021). In conducting meaningful self-assessment practices, student can progress their feedback literacy by actively seeking external feedback information and generating internal feedback which serves as a premise for gains to be harvested in the feedback process (Nicol 2021).

Limitations

As an exploratory study, the findings may not be transferable to other disciplines or contexts due to the homogeneity of the participants and the small sample size. However, we do hope our analysis could inform the teaching practices of practitioners across disciplines and trigger further discussions situated in various social-cultural contexts.

In our study, we didn’t probe into differences in perception and practices among these participants and the mediating factors leading to these differences. Studies in this direction may provide new insights for the cultivation of student feedback literacy. Moreover, studies from student perspective with individual differences taken into consideration will bring deeper understanding about how to support a whole variety of students in the development of student feedback literacy.

Conclusion

This study was an initial attempt to explore how teachers perceived the need to cultivate student feedback literacy and their actual practices. The findings pointed to underdeveloped teacher feedback literacy and the exigency for its improvement. Apart from teaching practice refinement, what counts most in the cultivation of student feedback literacy is a conceptual change of the teachers for a deeper and thorough understanding of feedback processes, which can be then disseminated to students. At its core is a recognition of feedback as a dialogic and interactive process between teachers and students, with student agency playing a vital part. Thus, this paper appeals to all teachers to shift their conventional view of feedback as transmission-oriented to student-centered and to reposition feedback as an active process inherent in teaching and learning involving shared responsibility from both teachers and students.

Furthermore, this conceptual change of feedback needs to be converted to appropriate and strategic course design where plentiful and sustained feedback opportunities are structured within the curriculum, and where feedback events are ingeniously embedded across units, which demands a high level of teacher feedback literacy. Therefore, this paper reiterates a reframing of teacher feedback literacy as an indispensable part of teacher education programs as proposed by Xu and Carless (2016) and calls for administrators to enact a policy where the development of teacher feedback literacy is encouraged, supported and facilitated. By so doing, both student feedback literacy and teacher feedback literacy can be constantly honed and polished.