Feedback has much potential for learning, when it also gives students guidance to bridge the gap between performance and goals. Effective feedback is more than telling students what criteria there...Show moreFeedback has much potential for learning, when it also gives students guidance to bridge the gap between performance and goals. Effective feedback is more than telling students what criteria there are to meet and appraising their performance. Teachers should also give suggestions or proposals for the best course of action to bridge the gap between performance and goal. Whether the student accepts this feedback and is willing to follow recommendations depends on the teacher approach to communicate this feedback and on students’ goal orientation. This study investigated to what extent the approach of the teacher and the goal orientation of the student had influence on student's use of feedback. Distinctions were made between directive and reflective approaches and between performance goal orientation and learning goal orientation. The study also tested if higher feedback use led to higher performance. Several dialogs were registered and their content was analysed on the balance between discussing the criteria to meet, appraising performance, and giving recommendations. This study partially confirmed that the conversation between teacher and student exerts influence on the student acceptance of and compliance with feedback. The teacher approach appeared to make little difference. The performance goal orientation of students, unexpectedly, had a negative impact both on the acceptance of feedback and on the use of recommendations. Students who followed recommendations had, as expected, a higher performance in the second-stage. The content analysis revealed that teachers mainly appraise the performance of student and give little recommendations on how to improve performance.Show less
