Facilitating productive use of feedback in higher education

Abstract

Although feedback has a great potential for learning, students do not always make use of this potential. This article therefore reviews research literature on students’ use of feedback in higher education. This is done in order to find answers as to why some students do not use the feedback they receive and which factors are important in influencing students’ use of teacher feedback. Findings show that utility is not only a key feature for students’ use of feedback but also that some factors, such as lack of strategies for productively using feedback or lack of understanding of academic discourse, may hinder students’ possibilities to use the information formatively.