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How students’ perception of feedback influences self-regulated learning: the mediating role of self-efficacy and goal orientation

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Abstract

Feedback plays an important role in self-regulated learning. However, little is known about how students’ feedback perception affects their self-regulation process in learning. This study adopted the social cognitive perspective to investigate how students’ feedback perception is related to their self-regulated learning, along with the mediating effects of self-efficacy and goal orientation. A total of 236 7th grade students participated in this study. Self-reported data regarding feedback perception, self-efficacy, achievement goals, performance goals, and self-regulated learning were collected. The results revealed that students’ perception of teachers’ feedback directly and positively predicted students’ self-regulated learning. Self-efficacy and achievement goals mediated the effect of feedback perception on students’ cognitive strategy use and self-regulation, while performance goals showed no significant influence. Such findings illustrated the importance of feedback in self-regulation and empirically supported some of the reciprocal interactions among environmental, personal, and behavioral factors in social cognitive theory.

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Funding

This research was funded by the 2019 (MOE) Ministry of Education in China Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (19YJC190026).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment Toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, 19Th Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jingwen He, Yue Liu, Tong Ran & Danhui Zhang

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  1. Jingwen He
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  2. Yue Liu
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Correspondence to Danhui Zhang.

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Jingwen He. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, 19th Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100875, China. Email: he.2093@osu.edu.

Yue Liu. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, 19th Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100875, China. Email: liuyue@mail.bnu.edu.cn.

Tong Ran. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, 19th Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100875, China. Email:rantong_bnu@163.com.

Danhui Zhang. Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, 19th Xinjiekouwai Street, Haidian District, Beijing 100875, China. Email: danhuizhang@bnu.edu.cn.

Current Theme of Research:

1. Teacher Feedback and self-regulation: Our work over the past years has concentrated on the influence of teaching strategies on students’ learning, including motivation, self-regulation, and academic performance. Some of our works have applied the quasi-experimental designed study to investigate the difference between the control group and the treatment group where feedback strategies have been used. Other works examined the relationships among different psychological attributes through using statistical modeling, such as structural equation modeling or hierarchical linear modelling.

2. The analysis and measurement of different psychological attributes. We have attempted to identify how certain psychological factors interact with individual’s learning behaviors. For one, we are interested with how self-efficacy mediate the relationship between their engagement in science-related extra-curriculum activities and their academic performance in science.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Cui, Y., Zhao, G., & Zhang, D. (2022). Improving students' inquiry learning in web‐based environments by providing structure: Does the teacher matter or platform matter?. British Journal of Educational Technology.

Wei, D., Zhang, D., He, J., & Bobis, J. (2020). The impact of perceived teachers’ autonomy support on students’ mathematics achievement: evidences based on latent growth curve modelling. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 35(3), 703-725.

Zhang D., Fu D., Liu, H. &, Liu, L. (2018a). Effect of Perceived Teacher’ s Autonomy Support on Students’ Achievement: The Mediating Role of Autonomy Psychological Need and Intrinsic Motivation. Teacher Education Research (Pin Yin: Jiao Shi Jiao Yu Yan Jiu), 30(1): 79–86.

Zhang, D., Bobis, J., Wu X., & Cui, Y. (2018b). The Effects of an Autonomy-Supportive Teaching Intervention on Chinese Physics Students and their Teacher. Research in Science Education, 1–27.

Zhang, D., Cui, Y., Zhou, Y., & Liu, H. (2018). The role of school adaptation and self-concept in influencing Chinese high school students’ Growth in math achievement. Frontiers in Psychology. In press.

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Zhang, D* & Tang, X. (2017). The Role of Extracurricular Activities in Influencing Middle School Students’ Science Learning in China. International Journal of Science Education. In press.

Appendix

Appendix

Feedback Perception Questionnaire (Adapted from Brown et al., (2016).

1. I look at feedback to see what I did wrong. (cofq28)

2. Feedback makes me try harder. (cofq18).

3. I actively use feedback to help me improve. (cofq32).

4. I make active use of feedback from my teacher. (cofq13).

5. I pay attention to feedback from my teacher. (cofq7).

6. I use feedback to set goals for the next task. (cofq9).

7. Teacher gives me trustworthy and honest feedback. (cofq29).

8. Feedback from my teacher makes it clear how to improve. (cofq21).

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He, J., Liu, Y., Ran, T. et al. How students’ perception of feedback influences self-regulated learning: the mediating role of self-efficacy and goal orientation. Eur J Psychol Educ 38, 1551–1569 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-022-00654-5

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