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Conceptualizing feedback literacy: knowing, being,

and acting

Paul Sutton

To cite this article: Paul Sutton (2012) Conceptualizing feedback literacy: knowing,
being, and acting, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49:1, 31-40, DOI:
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Innovations in Education and Teaching International
Vol. 49, No. 1, February 2012, 31–40

Conceptualizing feedback literacy: knowing, being, and acting

Paul Sutton*

Faculty of Education, Health & Welfare, University College Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

In this paper I seek to reflect upon the process of becoming feedback literate.
Feedback literacy is conceptualised as an integral component of a broader aca-
demic literacy that has three interrelated dimensions: the epistemological, the
ontological and the practical. Learners experience and respond differentially to
each of these dimensions which can render becoming feedback literate a com-
plex and challenging process. The acquisition of feedback literacy, I argue, is
also mediated by learners’ perceptions of their university teachers’ educational
identities.
Keywords: feedback literacy; knowing; being; acting; educational identity

Introduction
This paper uses empirical data from a research project funded by the Higher Educa-
tion Academy, Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics. The project con-
sisted of semi-structured interviews conducted during 2008–2009 with twenty-one
learners and eight academics from two social science departments, (one in Scotland
and one in England). Interviews consisted of open-ended questions framed by the
topics that had emerged from the literature review: those of meaning identity and
power. Participants were encouraged to discuss their experience of assessment and
feedback in the light of these topics. The interviews aspired to be a form of pur-
poseful dialogue between the research participants and were analysed using a sim-
plified version of Fairclough’s (1992) model of Critical Discourse Analysis.1 The
model of Critical Discourse Analysis was deployed as it compatible with the theo-
retical framework of the Academic Literacies approach.
In this paper selected extracts from the data are used in an illustrative fashion to
develop a conceptual argument concerning the nature of feedback literacy – the
ability to read, interpret and use written feedback. Synthesising the Academic Liter-
acies approach with the congruent work of Barnett & Coate (2005), and Barnett
(2007a, 2007b), becoming feedback literate, I argue, is experienced by some learn-
ers as both a complex and challenging process.
The relationship between feedback literacy and academics’ educational identi-
ties is also addressed in this paper. Educational identity refers to modes of being
in higher education contexts, which shape the social relations of teaching and
learning and which appear to either enable or constrain the acquisition of feedback
literacy.

*Email: psutton@marjon.ac.uk

ISSN 1470-3297 print/ISSN 1470-3300 online

Ó 2011 Taylor & Francis
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32 P. Sutton

Before conceptualizing the different dimension of feedback literacy it is neces-

sary to situate feedback literacy within the broader theoretical framework of the
Academic Literacies approach to learning in higher education.

The academic literacies approach

The Academic Literacies approach emerged from the broader New Literacies Stud-
ies (Gee, 1990) which questions the idea that general literacy is a simple technical
skill: the ability to read and write. Rather, literacy is a social practice enmeshed in
configurations of power relations (Street, 2003). Influenced by the work of Bakhtin
and Foucault, New Literacies Studies conceptualises literacy as a complex set of
social practices powerfully shaped by wider social and cultural forces (Barton,
Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000; Street 2003, 2004).
The Academic Literacies approach develops the insights of New Literacies Stud-
ies within the context of higher education. This approach argues that the concepts
and practices of academic literacy are not autonomous from the contexts and cul-
tures from which it emerges. Academic literacy is complex and diverse and is
always underpinned by ideological assumptions. In short, academic literacy is
embedded in: ‘conceptions of knowledge, identity and being’, ‘job markets’, and
‘educational contexts’ (Street, 2003, p. 78). Lea and Street (1998) argue that the
Academic Literacies approach attempts to overcome the shortcomings of the other
common approaches to learning in higher educational research: the study skills and
academic socialization approaches.
The study skills approach positions academic literacy as a set of discrete techni-
cal and instrumental skills which learners must master. Problems in learning are
construed as caused by individual skills deficits. This deficiency can be cured by
learners improving their language skills – grammar and spelling etc., and their orga-
nizational skills – their ability to construct effective introductions, conclusions, and
the staging of arguments etc. Therefore problems with interpreting and using feed-
back are construed as technical problems that can be fixed through a visit, or series
of visits, to study skills advisors.
The reductionism of the study skills approach is overcome, in part, in the aca-
demic socialization approach which positions learning as part of a broader process
of acculturation to the norms and values of academic thinking, reading and writing
(Lea & Street, 1998). Problems in learners’ use of feedback emerge from a failure
to acquire the culturally appropriate ‘deep’ approach to learning. Those learners
who become stuck in ‘strategic’ or ‘surface’ approaches are therefore inadequately
socialised into academic culture. Becoming more deeply immersed in academic cul-
ture (by reading and writing more and by engaging in debate) enables learners to
acquire the correct ‘deep’ orientation to feedback.
The academic socialization approach also has its limitations. It is premised upon
the assumption that academic institutions contain one homogenous culture rather
than a constellation of disciplinary, departmental and administrative cultures. Thus,
acculturation is a complex ongoing process. Furthermore, this approach does not
explicitly theorise the micro and macro power relations which structure the provi-
sion and use of feedback; for example the asymmetries of power which exist
between academic managers and academics, and academics and learners.
The Academic Literacies approach both incorporates and transcends the study
skills and academic socialisation approaches. It offers the possibility of a more
 Innovations in Education and Teaching International 33

comprehensive theorization of learner reading and writing in higher education (Lea

& Street, 1998). This approach maintains that acquiring academic literacy is a com-
plex process that not only demands that learners master new technical skills and
adapt to new cultures of learning and teaching, but, crucially, acquire new educa-
tional identities: new ways of knowing, being and acting in academic contexts.
Unsurprisingly, some learners find these demands challenging.
The challenges learners experience acquiring academic literacy are not then con-
strued as simple study skills deficits, or the failure to become adequately socialised
into academic cultures. Rather, challenges are construed as emerging from the
diverse epistemological assumptions of different academic disciplines concerning
the nature, representation and organization of knowledge; gaps between teacher’s
and learner’s expectations and understandings of academic discourse and practice;
and wider institutional factors, for example, the atomization of knowledge through
modularization and the standardization of learning and teaching practice through the
demands of quality assurance procedures.
In sum, from an Academic Literacies perspective, academic literacy in general,
and feedback literacy in particular, are contested and situated practices which take
place within particular institutional cultures and academic power/knowledge rela-
tions. It is now time to examine the process of feedback literacy in more detail.

The three dimensions of feedback literacy

Feedback literacy is a set of generic practices, skills and attributes which, like
information literacy (Lupton, 2008), is a series of situated learning practices.
Becoming feedback literate is part of the process that enables learners to reach
the standard of disciplinary knowledge indicated in module and programme learn-
ing outcomes, subject bench marks etc; that assists learners in forming judge-
ments concerning what counts as valid knowledge within particular disciplines;
and that helps them develop the ability to assess the quality of their own and
others’ work.
The situated learning practices of feedback literacy can be considered to have
three dimensions: an epistemological dimension, i.e. an engagement of learners in
knowing (acquiring academic knowledge); an ontological dimension, i.e. an engage-
ment of the self of the learner (investment of identity in academic work) a practical
dimension, i.e. an engagement of learners in acting (reading, thinking about, and
feeding forward feedback). I will now explore each of these dimensions.

The epistemological dimension: feedback on and for knowing

Becoming feedback literate demands much more from learners than understanding
why a grade has been awarded: more than understanding written feedback on
knowing. Feedback on knowing is a form of teaching in which academics comment
upon the quality and quantity of knowledge learners have presented in their assess-
ments. This is the summative dimension of feedback. Feedback on knowing can
also have a confidence boosting role, as indicated by an academic who observed
that one of the purposes of feedback is ‘to show them how much they know
because a lot of students don’t think they know very much.’ Signifying a learner’s
educational identity as successful/capable in written feedback acts to constitute that
identity. In this research study, learners appear to understand the function of feed-
34 P. Sutton

back on knowing and could see why a mark was awarded. They also engaged with
the confidence boosting dimension of feedback on knowing (see below).
Feedback literacy also requires that learners engage with feedback for knowing,
which is formative in character. As Batchelor (2006, p. 790) argues in the context
of analyzing the vulnerability of student voice, the term for indicates: ‘openness to
the possibility of movement and development’ and a ‘process to be activated’.
Feedback for knowing offers guidance on how an academic performance can be
improved. This aspect of feedback consists of guidance concerning how learners
can enhance the form and content of their mode of knowing. It consists of judg-
ments concerning how knowing can be expressed more clearly (for example,
through improving sentence structure and the staging of an argument); how more
critical modes of knowing can be developed (for example, through enhancing the
evaluation of knowledge); and how such guidance may be fed-forward into other,
and possibly unrelated, assessments. As one academic commented: ‘Feedback is a
resource for students to understand the grade which they have received against the
criteria we’ve used and it should be a resource to enable students to improve’.2
The idea of feedback as a valuable learning and teaching resource is one worth
emphasising. Indeed, recognition of the real value of feedback would require a sig-
nificant change in educational practice. It would necessitate the creation of more
time and space for feedback within the curriculum. This would help raise the status
of feedback, enabling it to become a highly valued resource by both academics and
learners, and also help feedback to become more securely embedded in institutional
structures and strategies (Hounsell, 2007).
Whereas learners appear to be able to engage with feedback on knowing,
engagement with feedback for knowing is more challenging. This research study
suggests that the grade is the prism through which feedback is read (Sutton & Gill,
2010). However, grades are polysemic: they signify different meanings to different
students. As Havnes and McDowell (2008) argue, learners are social agents who
actively construct the meaning of and response to feedback. This is illustrated in
the following statements: a year three learner observed: ‘If I get a good mark I’m
more inclined to read the feedback’; whereas a year two learner from the same
institution observed: ‘Well, if I get a pass, and it’s not the mark I was expecting,
then it would make me read the feedback a lot more in depth to see where I went
wrong.’
The grade then can be a powerful form of feedback to learners. Concentration
upon the grade can be interpreted by academics as a lamentable sign of a surface or
strategic approach to learning. Whilst acknowledging learner instrumentality, I con-
sider it to be only part of the complex process in which learners engage with both
feedback on and for learning. Learners inhabit a learning environment in which
grades are powerful signifiers not only of success and failure but of educational
identity. Furthermore, economic imperatives, particularly the need to undertake
employment to finance studying, impel learners to adopt an instrumental strategy.
Increasingly learners are enrolled as full-time but are in reality studying part-time
(Gibbs, 2006).
A competitive graduate job market also inclines the learner to view studying as
a means to an end rather than an end in itself. In my view, adopting a strategic
approach is a coherent and rational response to the socio-economic conditions
which structure many learners’ experience of higher education. However, the ten-
dency for learners to privilege feedback on knowing does not necessarily mean they
 Innovations in Education and Teaching International 35

adopt a simple strategic approach to feedback. This research study suggests that
learners combine elements of a strategic approach with a deep approach to feedback
which engages with feedback for knowing.
In sum, feedback literacy requires learners to engage with the epistemological
dimension of feedback. Some learners find feedback for learning challenging as it
can require them to change their mode of knowing the world and themselves.

The ontological dimension: developing educational being through feedback

As Barnett argues, it is the type of human being a learner is that shapes their
response to assessment, and by implication feedback. In this sense being (ontology)
precedes both knowing (epistemology) and acting (doing). Thus, ‘neither knowledge
nor skills can be developed without a development in the student’s being’ (2007b,
p. 31).
The institutions within which this research was conducted recruit a considerable
proportion of their learners from ‘widening participation’ backgrounds. There is a
tendency for some learners from such backgrounds to arrive at university without a
sureness of educational being: they often lack self-confidence. Acquiring feedback
literacy often involves developing learners’ self-confidence. As a year two learner
commented: ‘A lot of the time when I get my essay back I am not ready to deal
with the negative stuff . . . I struggle to take criticism because I am not sure of
myself, because I am lacking in confidence’.
The confidence boosting potential of feedback was frequently commented upon
by learners and teachers as was its confidence sapping potential. The comments
from academics included:

I think if we are critical in a more destructive way we’ve really got to watch out.
Some people can handle it. Some people cant, so I think we have to use constructive
language even when we’re giving bad news.

And:

It’s about building people up not knocking them down, and you can knock people
down very easily in your assessment feedback, you can actually damage confidence if
you are not careful.

A word of caution is necessary here. The impact of feedback on educational being

is variable. As a year one learner acknowledged, the effect of negative feedback
on self-confidence ‘depends on my frame of mind’, which in turn is shaped by a
complex of factors both inside and outside of academia. As McDowell (2008)
observes, the ways in which individual learners experience feedback may differ at
different times, in different learning contexts and even in different modes of
assessment.
Nevertheless, feedback has the potential to change the relationship of learners to
themselves and their educational world making them more or less confident. If feed-
back is a form of teaching, a way of cultivating student knowing, then the process
of coming to know how to improve their work, for example, brings a learner’s self
into a new relationship with the world: ‘Epistemological processes call forth onto-
logical processes’ (Barnett, 2007b, p. 31).
36 P. Sutton

Such epistemological and ontological processes are embodied experiences which

are necessarily uncomfortable at times. Barnett (2007b, p. 29) argues that educa-
tional being is simultaneously ‘enduring and fragile’ (Barnett, 2007b, p. 29). Even
though most learners complete their programmes of study, despite setbacks and
obstacles of varying kinds, their sense of self exists in a state of continual uncer-
tainty that renders them fragile (Barnett, 2007a, 2007b). ‘Being a student’, Barnett
(2007b, p. 32) argues, ‘is to be in a state of anxiety’. Anxiety may take numerous
forms: about assessments, relationships with peers and teachers, family and money
anxieties etc. Thus, learners have to develop their own modes of being which are
good enough to enable effective engagement in the complex and uncertain world of
higher education.
Barnett (2007b, p. 29) identifies the potential of the language of feedback to
undermine learners’ educational identities: ‘A word insensitively written in the mar-
gin of an essay . . . may cut deeply into a student’s being such that one word may
shatter her educational sense of her self.’ Unfortunately, Barnett somewhat over-
states his case here. In doing so, he becomes vulnerable to Ecclestone and Hayes
(2009) criticism that he is the philosopher of a dangerous therapeutic higher
education.
Drawing heavily on Furedi (2004), Ecclestone and Hayes (2009, p. 14) argue
that Barnett propounds a version of human beings premised upon ‘a diminished
academic self’. They argue Barnett’s work is premised upon a condescending con-
ception that all learners exist in a perpetual state of anxiety and vulnerability. The
result is that ‘the normal experiences of feeling ignorant and having to learn and
then writing up work to be examined (also known as being a student) become
potential emotional problems’ (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009, p. 88).
In the context of feedback literacy, there is a tendency within higher education
to reframe the academic problems experienced by learners as emotional problems
that require therapeutic interventions by lecturers, student counselors, and study
skills advisors. Not only are learners being socialised into accepting a subject posi-
tion of emotional vulnerability, academics are being dissuaded from challenging
learners for fear of adding to their emotional traumas.
This said, Batchelor (2006) wants to challenge the negative view of learner vul-
nerability as weakness and dependence and embrace a positive postmodern view of
the self. From this perspective vulnerability connotes epistemological and ontologi-
cal flexibility and openness. Vulnerability, therefore, constitutes a source of learner
power. Indeed vulnerability is central to the development of educational identity for
without it learners cannot discover their own unique ways of being learners.
This research (see also Sutton & Gill, 2010) suggests that emotion can play an
important part in feedback literacy but that learner vulnerability is neither as disem-
powering or empowering as the work of Barnett and Batchelor seems to assert.
Underpinning their work is a rather romantic philosophical anthropology. My posi-
tion is that the discourse and practice of feedback has the potential to impact upon
learner’s modes of knowing, being and acting both positively and negatively. The
positive possibilities of feedback are indicated in the following comment from one
academic:

I get a buzz from giving feedback to students because you can see them open up. It’s
really important for them to hear good things from you . . . then they are confident to
go onto the next step.
 Innovations in Education and Teaching International 37

The development of feedback literacy demands, first and foremost, that learners
develop confidence in their own academic ability. As one academic commented:

If you’re encouraging them to have more confidence then it will have an impact on
both what they are saying in class and what they’re thinking about, but also in their
written work because then they may have more confidence to have an opinion.

Learners must be willing to change their educational identities through feedback.

This self-developmental aspect of feedback was recognised by a number of the
learners interviewed. Their comments included: ‘It is developing me as a person’
(year two learner); ‘It is essential for self-improvement’ (year three learner); ‘It is
helping me grow as a person’ (year three learner).
However, a word of caution was articulated by a year two learner:

I don’t think you necessarily develop as a person through the feedback you are given.
You develop as a person through some of the academic staff you meet. There are defi-
nitely two or three people that I can safely say I am a better person for having met
them.

In short, as one academic commented: ‘they’re human beings and it’s about devel-
oping them as human beings’.
In sum, feedback literacy requires learners to engage with the ontological
dimension of feedback. For some learners, developing their mode of educational
being constitutes a challenging and anxiety-provoking experience.

The practical dimension: acting upon feedback

Feedback literacy requires learners to act upon, or feed-forward, the feedback given.
Feed-forward skills are developed through practice. We cannot assume that learners
possess these skills and explicit guidance concerning how to feed-forward feed back
may need to be given in the written feedback on assessments. The skills involved
in acting upon feedback may be identified as reading, interpreting and using feed-
back.
Almost all the learners interviewed claimed to read the feedback they were
given, though the process of reading, it would seem, is mediated by learners’ rela-
tionships with their university teachers (see below). Interpreting the meaning of
feedback, however, was more problematic. Academic language was one of the bar-
riers to interpreting feedback identified by both learners and teachers. As a year one
learner commented: ‘It’s just kind of a load of big words . . . and you think I don’t
understand it, so I’ll just understand the grade and the percentage instead.’
Whereas the complexity of academic language was perceived by learners as a
barrier to using feedback, the lack, or poor development, of learners’ academic lan-
guage was seen as problematic by academics. As one academic commented:

I think for some students it’s about vocabulary, and lexicon as well. Not only do they
not have the words to express themselves, they do not have the words to think. If they
do not have the language ability to deal with complex ideas, I think that holds them
back as well. And then you end up trying to cure all this with feedback. You’re not
just marking an essay you’re trying to develop these different aspects of their cogni-
tive abilities, so it becomes huge.
38 P. Sutton

Feedback literacy then demands learners acquire the academic language necessary
for understanding, interpreting and thinking with complex ideas. The challenge for
learners is to comprehend and use what may initially appear to be a ‘foreign’ aca-
demic language. As one year two learner commented, learners face ‘language barri-
ers’. This learner perceived that these barriers were not simply created by teachers:
they were the product of class relations, and institutional and disciplinary processes
and practices. He acknowledged the presence of an academic language barrier but
realised ‘it is there for a purpose: for raising people’s language’ and ‘to get others
to actually understand’. But, he continued, ‘I don’t think you have to set the stan-
dard lower’. The challenge then for teachers in today’s mass higher education sys-
tem is to make academic language accessible to learners from increasingly diverse
backgrounds, without denuding it of its power to signify, to analyse, to criticise.
Acknowledgement that the responsibility for learning to read, interpret and act
upon feedback is, in part, the learners’ was expressed by learners in the following
manner: ‘If you want to do well then you have to work out a way of doing well’
(year three learner). Some learners saw this as a process in which ‘you learn what
they want then you incorporate that into the next piece of work’ (year four learner).
This was elaborated upon by other learners who thought that feeding forward feed-
back involved teasing out the tacit expectations of academics: ‘it all depends on the
lecturer’s personal interest, so you have to work out what angle they come from, as
to what angle you take’ (year three learner).
Academics were also seen to have an obligation to provide clear guidance upon
what and how to feed forward feedback: ‘Don’t tell me not to do something without
telling me what I can do to improve it’ (year 4 learner). Enabling learners to develop
the skill of effectively acting upon feedback requires academics to provide more than
feedback on knowing. Feedback for knowing must also be provided otherwise learn-
ers will have nothing to work with to improve their feed forward skills.
In sum, feedback literacy requires learners to engage with the practical dimen-
sion of feedback. For some learners reading, interpreting and acting upon feedback
is a significant challenge.

Educational identity and the social relations of feedback literacy

This research study suggests that, from a learner’s perspective, the social relations
established between learners and academics either enable or constrain the develop-
ment of the epistemological, ontological and practical dimensions of feedback liter-
acy. The learners interviewed believed that an academic’s educational identity
influences learners’ ability and willingness to engage successfully with feedback.
The development of feedback literacy I would suggest is, to a degree, contingent
upon the social relations within which feedback is situated. That is, the way in
which feedback is read, interpreted and used is mediated by academic-learner rela-
tionships. As a year two learner stated: ‘The relationship between lecturer and stu-
dent is very important. I think some tutors care and some don’t’. If academics give
the impression of not caring, then even constructively critical feedback may be writ-
ten off as a manifestation of this lack of interest and dismissed. One of the signifi-
ers of a caring academic identified by learners is bespoke feedback. Learners tend
to engage more readily with feedback that is personalised but not personal, as this
is interpreted as an indication that academics care about an individual learner’s
work. Furthermore, when academics demonstrate ‘they actually care about what
 Innovations in Education and Teaching International 39

they are teaching’ (year two learner), then learners generally feel more cared about
and care more about the feedback they receive.
Caring for learners is manifested in a number of ways:

There are different ways of being supportive, obviously the written feedback, but then
it’s always nice when you see one of them and they say “I really enjoyed reading your
essay” or “I’ve never had somebody look at it from this perspective before”. (year
four learner)

This was substantiated by a comment made by one academic: ‘I think they value
the verbal off the cuff responses to what they’re saying just as much as they do the
written feedback.’ An explicit, informal verbal valorization of learning can be a
very important type of feedback.
Formal written and informal verbal feedback contain an articulation of educational
identity. As Lea and Stierer (2009) argue, university teachers everyday writing, and I
would add everyday speech too, is part of the discursive construction of identity.
When academics signify in writing and speech that they care about their learners then
it would appear that the possibility of learners engaging with feedback is enhanced.
In sum, the way in which academics articulate their educational identities within
the social relations of learning and teaching appears to have the potential to either
enable or constrain the development of feedback literacy.

Conclusion
The acquisition of feedback literacy is a complex process which presents learners
with epistemological, ontological and practical challenges. Engagement with each
of these dimensions of feedback presents different challenges for different types of
learner. Each learner negotiates and balances the demands they experience from
feedback in different ways.
Feedback literacy can be facilitated through the provision of feedback that explic-
itly addresses its epistemological, ontological and practical dimensions. This involves
giving feedback for knowing as well feedback on knowing so that learners have
something to work with to improve their performance. It also involves providing feed-
back that enhances learner self-confidence without assuming that learners possess vul-
nerable, diminished educational identities. Therapeutic approaches to feedback are
condescending and may act to undermine the development of learner agency and
autonomy. Feedback literacy also requires learners and teachers to address the lan-
guage barriers which inhibit the capacity for learners to understand, interpret and act
upon feedback.3 Finally, I have suggested that some learners believe that feedback lit-
eracy is mediated by academics’ educational identities. The development of feedback
literacy may therefore be enhanced when learners experience the social relations of
teaching and learning as being characterised by an ethos of care.

Notes
1. See Sutton and Gill 2010 for further details of the research method and analysis.
2. In a future research project, I intend to examine written feedback provided to learners in
order to determine the extent to which it actually provides feedback for knowing.
3. I have argued elsewhere (Sutton, 2009) that making feedback more dialogic goes some
way to overcome such barriers.
40 P. Sutton

Notes on contributor
Paul Sutton is senior lecturer in Sociology. Current research interests: the scholarship of
learning and teaching, particularly feedback, assessment and curriculum design. In my
research and scholarly activity I seek to develop imaginative ways of using social theory to
develop androgogic practice.

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