‘This is not what I need’: conflicting assessment feedback beliefs in a post-secondary institution in Hong Kong

Exploring students’ perspective on feedback is high on the research agenda following the comparatively lower satisfaction scores for assessment and feedback in the National Student Survey. However, limited research examines how teachers and students perceive the same feedback events in the post-secondary context. This case study fills the gap by comparing the views of two teachers and 20 first-year students on assessment feedback in an academic English module in a post-secondary institution in Hong Kong. Data collection methods involved documentation of feedback on marked assignments, recordings of verbal feedback sessions, stimulated-recall interviews with teachers, and focus group interviews with students. The conflicting beliefs indicated three problems: insufficient explanation of criteria and standards for feedback interpretation; use of praise for rapport building at a cost of feedback sincerity; limited uptake of error corrections in end-of-term assignments. Possible reasons behind the divergence are discussed. The paper argues that using praise to save students’ face may paradoxically heighten the tensions in feedback processes in a high-stakes assessment context. A more effective method is to foster students’ ‘feedback resilience’ to help them manage negative emotions in feedback processes. Recommendations for developing ‘feedback resilience’ are provided, and avenues for future research discussed.