Journey towards dialogic feedback in teacher education: a narrative inquiry

Research into feedback for students in higher education has shifted from investigating unidirectional models, where students are positioned as passive receivers of information, to examining more interactive practices where students are active participants in a dialogue about their learning. Along with this shift, studies have explored the feedback literacy required by lecturers and students that can facilitate this interactive feedback. However, few studies have explored how higher education lecturers develop their feedback literacy. This article addresses that gap in the literature by presenting a narrative inquiry, which identifies key experiences of one teacher educator from Indonesia (first author Rini), as she developed her feedback literacy, starting with her time as a student in secondary school, continuing into her experiences as a higher education student and/or lecturer in Indonesia, the US and Australia. The main data comprises autobiographical narratives and reflections written by Indonesian first author Rini, in dialogue with her Australian PhD supervisors. These narratives document key experiences over more than a decade that shaped Rini’s developing feedback literacy. The narrative inquiry approach enables a theorised and contextualised account of feedback in particular higher education contexts and also provides practical insights into some effective methods of developing feedback literacy in higher education settings.