‘This form could give me the courage to address otherwise undiscussed topics’: student reasons for (not) impacting their feedback environment

Abstract

Students are increasingly expected to take up proactive roles in feedback processes. While most feedback research focuses on asking, receiving, and engaging with feedback, some suggest that students must also proactively shape their feedback environment. This study explored graduate life science master’s students’ first impressions of a dialogue prompt, which aimed to support them in proactively starting a dialogue with their supervisor on several aspects of the feedback environment during their research internship. We used a survey to explore reasons for (not) wanting to use the dialogue prompt and to what extent individual and interpersonal variables could explain these. An exploratory factor analysis uncovered three factors. Aided by qualitative analysis, these were interpreted as underlying reasons for (not) wanting to use the dialogue prompt. ‘Barriers of Use’ represents potential barriers hindering the prompt’s use, ‘Practical Use’ represents the prompt’s usefulness in addressing practical topics, and ‘Critical Voicing Use’ in addressing critical topics. Multiple regression examining individual and interpersonal variables only showed one significant association, suggesting that students who are positive about the prompt’s Practical Use also tend to believe that feedback, in general, is useful for achieving goals. We discuss our findings in relation to students’ proactivity and responsibility.