SoTL Corner: Instructor feedback is emotional

Midway through graduate school, I received a heavily-edited draft of my first manuscript back from my graduate advisor. As I dutifully went through her comments/changes, I noticed an “UGH” written in the margins midway through the draft. When I asked her what it meant, she said that my paragraph was so bad, she didn’t even know how to provide feedback on it so she just wrote “UGH.” I thanked her, returned to my desk, and (knowing myself) spent the next fourteen hours in a dark spiral of despair about my future as a graduate student. In my years since, I’ve been working hard to provide more helpful, actionable, and kind feedback to my own students, in an effort to keep them motivated, engaged, and spiral-free (spiral-minimized?)

Smith & colleagues (2021) explored undergraduate students’ emotional responses to instructor feedback on assessments and (importantly) how those emotions impact their learning. Using interviews and reflective diaries across three universities, the researchers examined how emotional responses influenced students’ motivation, confidence, and ability to engage with the feedback. I included a few quotes from the interviews below, but encourage you to look through the entire paper for more (including how they coded students’ responses).

Key take-aways:

Feedback is emotional, not just cognitive. While it is perhaps unsurprising that students report anxiety, frustration, sadness, and embarrassment in response to negative feedback, those emotions are often stronger and last longer than the positive ones, which can impact students’ retention & belonging.
- “My first lab test was not too good, so when I took the second one I was nervous about turning it in because I was like, oh my God, I’m going to do bad like I did on the first one.” -Interview year 1 (pg 11)
- “If you are overall having more negative feedback, you do feel frustrated and it does sort of flow into the rest of the course and your wider learning.” -Interview year 3 (p 14)
- “If I get negative feedback, I just keep beating myself up over it.” -Interview year 1 (pg 9)
- “They don’t realize the late nights you’ve done in the last week because you’re not happy with what you’ve got. And then you’ve just been handed a two-word phrase, not even a full sentence. You have no idea how much heart I put into this, and you’ve given me nothing back. It’s completely crushing.” -Interview year 2 (pg 13)
First-year students struggle most. They often interpret critical feedback as a reflection of their worth, not just their work — leading to reduced motivation and self-esteem.
- “Negative feedback does take a toll on self-confidence. I tend to overthink. Is this the right field that I want to go into? Is this the right major?” -Interview year 1 (pg 12)
- “It’s hard to differentiate negative feedback as not being directed at you. Your work is an extension of you, it’s really hard to separate the work and the comment from you.” -Interview year 2 (pg 12)
Positive feedback is fleeting. It makes students feel good, but often doesn’t lead to lasting learning or behavior change. Students appreciate it but don’t always act on it.
- “If I get really positive feedback, I’m on a high for the rest of the day. When I get negative feedback … the anxiety sticks with me until the next time.” -Interview year 2 (pg 11)
- “When I get positive feedback, it makes me feel good, but I don’t act on it as much as negative feedback” -Interview year 1 (pg 14)
- “The negative really overshadows the positive…I only think about the ‘You need to do this’ part.” -Interview year 1 (pg 11)
Tone & clarity matter. Students want specific, constructive feedback that acknowledges their effort and gives clear guidance on how to improve. Vague or overly harsh comments are often demotivating.
- “If I have a really bad negative comment I’m like I can’t do this, and it can often impact the next piece of work as I’m like spending too much time stressing out over the last one.” -Interview year 2 (pg 11)
- “Negative feedback definitely impacts assignments that are due in future because I get anxious again that I’m not doing everything correctly” -Interview year 2
Verbal and relational feedback helps. Students respond well to face-to-face conversations that clarify intent and tone. These interactions build trust and reduce the emotional sting of criticism.
- “When my instructors talk to me, I understand far more than I read.” Interview year 3 (pg 13)
Students become more resilient over time. While many students learn to process negative feedback more productively over time, early support is crucial.
- “It takes time to get over those emotions, but that has progressed. I find that it gets quicker every time now. I feel a lot better with getting feedback than I did a few years ago.” -Interview year 3 (pg 11)

How this might inform your teaching:

It is important to express feedback carefully & thoughtfully, to support students’ emotional responses & processes:

Give permission to fail, by using low-stakes assessments & providing opportunities to revise/resubmit – this helps students build confidence and reduce their fear of failure
Balance criticism with praise, even in low-scoring work
Use non-judgmental, respectful language and acknowledge effort
Offer specific suggestions for improvement, not just identification of problems
Help build your students’ feedback literacy by discussing how to use feedback constructively, and what it might (and doesn’t) mean about their learning and their identity

For more, please check out the full paper:

Smith et al (2021) Exploring the Emotional Responses of Undergraduate Students to Assessment Feedback: Implications for Instructors. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 9 (1). pp. 294-316. ISSN 2167-4779 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.9.1.20

Interested in contributing to SoTL Corner with a summary of a SoTL article? Please contact Kate at kmcammac@sewanee.edu