AI enhanced feedback literacy intervention for academic success beyond first year in tertiary education.

This study examines the integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in academic skills teaching to enhance first-year students’ feedback literacy and emotional resilience. In an undergraduate Academic Skills module, feedback literacy was embedded as a core topic, and GenAI tools were leveraged to design scaffolded learning activities targeting key stages of the feedback process. Nineteen first-year students participated in a focus group and five in follow-up interviews to share their experiences with four GenAI-enabled feedback literacy activities. Using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis, qualitative data were analysed to identify patterns in student perceptions and outcomes. The findings indicate that incorporating GenAI-driven activities fostered greater learner engagement, self-regulation, and autonomy in the feedback process. Students reported improved ability to receive feedback constructively, internalise feedback by reflecting on its implications for their work and identity, and act on feedback through concrete revisions and goal-setting. The dialogic and interactive nature of the activities co-created with GenAI helped create a safe learning environment where students could practice giving and receiving feedback. Participants highlighted increased confidence in interpreting feedback and reduced anxiety in applying it, pointing to strengthened emotional resilience. For example, students described feedback as “a tool for improvement and gaining perspective,” noting the value of having “someone else with a different insight… tell you what could be improved.” They also emphasised the importance of peer dialogue and openness, with one remarking, “The more open someone was with their feedback, the more advantage I had… I was able to analyse the activity through their lens.” This article reflects on the implications of these innovations for curriculum design. It offers practical insights into how GenAI can be harnessed to cultivate feedback literacy and resilient learning dispositions in first-year students.