Automated feedback on argumentative writing: The role of secondary students' feedback receptivity and feedback perception

Background:

Argumentative competencies are key in secondary school. Feedback can foster competence development, but effects on performance and motivation vary widely across students. Students' feedback receptivity and perceptions are presumed to explain this heterogeneity; however, empirical evidence for automated feedback is lacking.

Aims:

We investigated how students' receptivity to feedback related to revision performance and interest change during an argumentative writing task, and whether students' usefulness perceptions of the given feedback mediated the relationship.

Methods and results:

1507 secondary school students wrote an argumentative text, received automated feedback, and revised their texts. We found direct effects for dimensions of receptivity on students' revision performance and changes in situational interest. The effect on situational interest was mediated by students' perceptions of feedback.

Conclusions:

Our findings provide evidence for the importance of considering both students' general receptivity and situational perceptions of feedback in explaining heterogeneity in automated feedback effects.

Educational relevance statement:

The study shows that students' general attitudes towards feedback and their usual engagement with feedback (i.e., their receptivity) are related to how they perceive specific feedback messages about their writing, how much they benefit from feedback, and how their interest in the writing task changes after receiving feedback. For schools, the results suggest that encouraging students' general receptivity to feedback may be a valuable goal alongside providing high-quality feedback.