Using feedback dialogue in personal tutorials to support international student attainment

This three-year pedagogical action research (PedAR) project sought a novel approach to addressing the Home/ International attainment gap on a diverse undergraduate business course in a UK Arts University.

Using mixed methods this project investigated student and tutor conceptions of feedback and determined how a personal tutoring scheme could be used to support students’ use of feedback to enhance their attainment. An initial reconnaissance phase preceded the implementation of an intervention named Personal Academic Tutorials (PATs). The first cycle involved one course with subsequent cycles widening the scope across the business school to 8 undergraduate and 11 postgraduate courses seeking validation for the intervention.

Through an iterative design of PedAR, the largely qualitative datasets evidenced that both curriculum and personal relationships are important in motivating student use of feedback. Large cohort sizes and their impact on time were found to present a barrier to relationship development between students and tutors which was seen to particularly impact international students and hinder the development of their academic cultural competences including their feedback literacy. In the context of a modularised business course where subject relationships are fragmented this provides an additional relational challenge.

This study confirms the reported endurance of student and tutor conceptualisations of feedback as product and the reported challenges of feedback uptake. It also supports the understanding of feedback as an interaction between practices, context and individuals. This study demonstrates that the personal tutor can play an important role in the feedback ecosystem. Recommendations are made for the crafting of SMART feedback ecosystem processes that are adapted to discipline, prior educational experience and year of study.