How do learners process and use feedback? A systematic review of research using online measures

Van Meenen, Florence [UCL] Masson, Nicolas [UCL] Coertjens, Liesje [UCL]

Up to present, only a limited number of studies have investigated how learners process and use the feedback they receive. Two literature reviews have looked into this research topic. The first, by Jonsson (2013), focused on higher education students’ use of teacher feedback. The second, carried out by Winstone and colleagues (2017), aimed to understand learners’ engagement with feedback in all education levels. Yet, the use of feedback has gained interest among researchers in recent years. Moreover, online measurements are increasingly relied upon to better capture the conscious or unconscious processing activities involved in feedback processing and feedback use. Hence, an updated view on the state of literature on how learners process and use feedback, and of the gaps and directions for future research is timely. The aims of this systematic literature review are twofold: (1) Which study designs and online measures are used in studies on the processing feedback by learners? (2) Which strategies do learners use to deal with feedback and what are the factors that promote or impede its use? We have collected all empirical studies published between the beginning of 2014 and the end of 2020 in Scopus, PsycINFO and ERIC. 3295 peer-reviewed articles were retrieved. After a first sorting based on the screening of titles, abstracts and keywords, 126 articles were retained. The next steps in this research include screening the full texts and conducting a reference-mining search.Keywords: assessment, methods and tool and meta-analysis.