Clear goals and assessment design are associated with feedback literacy

Updated Sep 07, 2026

feedback

Students' accounts of feedback concern more than the comments written on an assignment. Caroline Xin Liu and Lily Min Zeng examine how perceived learning conditions relate to feedback literacy in When ‘good teaching’ isn’t enough.

What was studied

The survey analysis included 547 mainland Chinese undergraduates at eight publicly funded Hong Kong universities, recruited through convenience and snowball sampling. Fifteen survey participants subsequently took part in interviews.

In the statistical model, assessment for understanding and clear goals and standards were associated with feedback literacy. Good teaching and teacher feedback did not have statistically significant direct paths to feedback literacy, although good teaching was directly associated with reported learning outcomes.

The measures were student reports, including self-reported skill development. Interviews described how assessment opportunities and transparent standards could support feedback use. These findings do not establish that changing one feature causes literacy or learning to improve. See the publisher's methods and results.

Questions for a programme review

Our editorial suggestion is to compare students' accounts with a small set of assessment briefs, criteria and feedback examples. Ask where expectations become unclear and where a student has an opportunity to use feedback in later work.

A non-significant path in this model is not evidence that teachers or their comments are unimportant. Avoid turning the findings into a ranking of staff effort. Use the study to frame questions about the relationship between programme design and students' reported experience, then evaluate any changes locally.

The NSS open-text methodology guide can help plan a review of comment themes, with explicit coverage and comparison rules.

Review update, 7 September 2026: This limited-access review uses the abstract and accessible publisher sections. It replaces causal claims about literacy growth with the measured associations and clarifies that learning outcomes were self-reported. Complete tables and all supporting passages were not retrieved.