Feedback Literacy in Higher Education

Research Project, 2025 – 2028

This project brings together research on feedback literacy in higher education, with a particular focus on how students and academic writers learn to actively seek, evaluate, and use feedback to support learning and writing development.

A central strand of the project examines feedback-seeking behaviour as a self-regulation strategy. Rather than positioning students as passive recipients of feedback, this work explores pedagogical approaches that enable them to identify their feedback needs, formulate purposeful questions, seek input from peers and teachers, monitor gaps in their work, and make informed decisions about how feedback should be used.

A second strand investigates how feedback literacy is evolving in the context of generative AI. This research explores the relationships between human feedback, AI-generated feedback, disciplinary knowledge, and academic voice. Particular attention is given to how students and doctoral writers can critically engage with AI-generated suggestions while maintaining responsibility for their learning, rhetorical choices, and disciplinary identity.

Across these strands, the project conceptualises feedback literacy as an active and socially situated capacity involving self-regulation, critical judgement, dialogue, and agency. The overall aim is to develop theoretically informed and pedagogically applicable approaches that help learners navigate increasingly complex feedback ecologies involving peers, teachers, disciplinary communities, and generative AI.