Impacts of epistemic beliefs on undergraduates’ student feedback literacy and mediation of critical thinking

Student feedback literacy is emphasised in recent literature as a critical attribute of university graduates. Research on student feedback literacy has contributed to advancing and optimising feedback practices at classroom and program levels and, ultimately, the quality of higher education. Although the impacts of epistemic beliefs on specific dimensions of student feedback literacy have been discussed in the literature, there is still a lack of quantitative research to investigate the strength of such impacts. To fill in this research gap. This study explores the impact of epistemic beliefs on student feedback literacy among 727 Cambodian undergraduate students via a survey study. The results of structural equation modelling analysis reveal that a) the complexity dimension of epistemic beliefs exerts significant and positive direct and indirect effects on student feedback literacy mediated by critical thinking, b) the source dimension has a significant and positive direct effect on student feedback literacy and an indirect negative effect mediated by critical thinking, c) the justification dimension has a positive and indirect effect on student feedback literacy mediated by critical thinking and d) the certainty dimension has a significant and negative direct effect on student feedback literacy. The study concludes that nurturing dialectical epistemic beliefs and critical thinking is vital for developing feedback-literate students in higher education. Copyright © 2024 International AHE Conference.