Using Active Feedback to Develop Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

McCallum, S. and Nicol, D. (2023) Using Active Feedback to Develop Students’ Critical Thinking Skills. AHE Conference 2023, Manchester, UK, 22-23 June 2023.

Abstract

Issue: Even though developing students’ critical thinking is an implicit purpose behind feedback it is not usually directly targeted. Based on the model of feedback as an internal comparison process (Nicol, 2021), we investigated how teachers might design feedback to explicitly develop critical thinking. The context is a computational problem. Critical thinking refers to students’ ability to evaluate their own thought processes, how good their decision-making is or how well they have solved a problem. Previous research: Current conceptions of feedback are mostly dialogic (van der Kleij et al, 2019). Teachers (or peers) comment on or have a discussion about student's work. However, there is a tension between feedback provision and students developing critical thinking. Also, students frequently make similar computational mistakes even after feedback receipt (Goldstone and Day, 2012) This study assumes feedback is internally generated by students by making comparisons. They might compare their thinking/productions against comments or dialogue with others or against information in resources. In this conception, there are three pedagogical considerations (Nicol, 2022) (i) choice of comparator(s) (ii) instructions for comparison (iii) that students make explicit what they learn from comparing (i.e., make self-feedback tangible). By varying the first two, students are called on to examine their work from different perspectives which develops criticality, whereas the third ensures they reflect on their own thought and decision-making processes. Method/Analysis: Accountancy students carried out a complex depreciation computation, then compared what they produced against (i) worked solution to same problem (same format comparison) (ii) video of expert discussing her thinking as she solved the problem (different format) (iii) theoretical framing provided by international accountancy standards body (different format) (iv) computation based on different assumptions (same format). While there is research on same format comparisons (To, Panadero and Carless, 2022: Nicol and McCallum, 2022) there is little or none on different formats. Students made their comparison outputs explicit in writing. We thematically analyzed the feedback students’ self-generated and their perceptions of learning from generating it. Findings: Initial results suggest that worked solutions enable students to identify what’s wrong with their computation, while the video helps them understand why. The theoretical framing enabled them to generate feedback on the theory-practice relationship while the assumption change caused them to question the thinking behind and ethical basis of their calculation. Overall, comparison-based feedback makes visible and calls on students to examine their decision-making from many different perspectives.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Nicol, Professor David and McCallum, Mrs Suzanne
• Authors: McCallum, S., and Nicol, D.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Accounting and Finance; College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Management

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