Detailed automated feedback helps, and feedback literacy shapes how it is received
Learning analytics makes it possible to send personalized feedback to hundreds of students at once. We tested whether richer feedback is worth the effort, and for whom.
What we did
In a randomized field experiment, 196 first-semester teacher education students at a German university worked in small groups on a week-long online collaboration task about cognitive activation in the classroom. Afterwards, everyone received automated, personalized feedback.
The control group received simple feedback: how many posts they had written and whether they had passed. The experimental group received highly informative feedback with two parts. One part assessed the group's joint statement, for example its use of academic terminology and of evidence from the video they analysed. The other described each student's role in the group process.
What we found
Both kinds of feedback were equally easy to understand. Beyond that, the highly informative feedback did better on almost every count. Students were considerably more likely to find it helpful, to say it helped them understand their learning progress, and to report that it supported reflecting on and regulating their own learning.
Feedback literacy changed part of this picture. Students with more productive attitudes toward feedback found the detailed feedback more helpful and more motivating. The same students were less satisfied with the simple feedback. The second dimension of feedback literacy, feedback practices, did not moderate perceptions.
What it means
Investing in well-designed, informative feedback pays off in how students perceive and intend to use it, and the benefits for reflection and self-regulation held regardless of feedback literacy. Feedback quality and students' feedback literacy are best developed together.
Weidlich, J., Fink, A., Frey, A., Jivet, I., Gombert, S., Menzel, L., Giorgashvili, T., Yau, J., & Drachsler, H. (2025). Highly informative feedback using learning analytics: How feedback literacy moderates student perceptions of feedback. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 22, 43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-025-00539-9