Making teaching visible: video-based dialogic feedback conversations and lecturers’ interpersonal communication. An action research study in Israeli higher education

This study examines how higher education lecturers’ interpersonal communication can be supported and developed through a cyclical, video-based dialogic feedback process. Conducted as qualitative action research in an academic college in Israel, the study involved ten lecturers who participated in a semester-long developmental process consisting of three video-recorded lessons, three dialogic feedback conversations, written summaries, and semi-structured interviews before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. The findings indicate a developmental sequence across the three feedback cycles, moving from awareness of communicative difficulties, through experimentation and refinement, to consolidation and transfer of change to subsequent teaching. Participants described the video-based dialogic feedback conversations as enabling them to see, reinterpret, and better understand their own teaching practices. Reported and observed patterns of change were identified across five dimensions of interpersonal communication: lesson organization, clarity of messages, contact with students, creation of interest, and creation of value. Participants experienced the process as professional, concrete, supportive, and complementary to student evaluations. The findings suggest that formative, video-based dialogic feedback can strengthen academic development by providing lecturers with practice-based guidance, supporting reflective professional learning, and enabling gradual pedagogical change. The study highlights the value of moving beyond reliance on student evaluations alone toward developmental feedback processes that help lecturers examine concrete teaching situations, reinterpret their practice, and transfer new insights to subsequent teaching contexts.