The Instructional Feedback Orientation Scale: Conceptualizing and Validating a New Measure for Assessing Perceptions of Instructional Feedback

Abstract

Theoretical perspectives on the efficacy of instructional feedback suggest that there should be significant variation in students’ perceptions of and responses to feedback messages. Yet, little effort has been made to either uncover the perceptual dimensions by which students evaluate feedback, or to measure students’ perceptions of feedback. The present project sought to accomplish these tasks by using factor analytic procedures to classify student perceptions of feedback. The results of Study One produced a pilot inventory that included four dimensions: feedback utility, sensitivity, confidentiality, and retention. In Study Two, a confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor solution, and the results of correlation analyses provided initial evidence of concurrent and discriminant validity for the new scale. Theoretically, the results extend feedback intervention theory. Pragmatically, the results offer a new measure useful for understanding students’ predispositions toward instructional feedback.