Inside out: Assessing English teachers’ perceptions of feedback utility, self-efficacy and responsibility

Despite the powerful influence of feedback on student achievement (Hattie, 2009), teachers are found to lack feedback literacy in EFL (English-as-a-foreign language) contexts (Lee, 2017). Teachers are often expected to be a feedback ‘machine’ to automatically deliver useful feedback to student; however, in reality, teacher feedback is often found to lack effectiveness. To harness the power of teacher feedback, it is first and foremost crucial to understand teachers’ orientations to feedback pertaining to feedback literacy at multiple aspects (e.g., values, competences, and responsibility). Based on previous research on testing students’ feedback orientations, this study took a focus on developing a teacher version of Feedback Orientation Scale (FOS) to assess English teachers’ perceptions of feedback utility, self-efficacy, social awareness and responsibility to provide students’ feedback. 220 English teachers from over 20 junior secondary schools in Guangzhou, mainland China completed the survey. The results supported the four-factor solution for the FOS. In addition, significantly positive correlations were identified among the four feedback orientations. A follow-up path analysis showed English teachers’ perceived feedback utility was the strongest predictor of their responsibility to provide feedback to students as compared to feedback self-efficacy and feedback social awareness. This study, to our knowledge, is the first to explore the “black box” of English teachers’ feedback literacy not only in terms of four key feedback orientations, but their relationships. Pedagogical implications for effective feedback practices in EFL contexts are discussed. Copyright © 2019 Inaugural Conference on Language Teaching and Learning.