Feedback Synthes Essay

Feedback is important to both the supervisors and the supervisee. It is a tool of communication between the two and should therefore consider the appropriateness and relevance for both groups. The feedback should not just be a way of expression for the supervisor but the supervisee should also be able to decode the message in order to act upon it accordingly. This therefore leads to the question on which sort of feedback is best for both the supervisor and supervisee. In most instances, the feedback given is often written. Another finding was that the preference of students on the mode depended on the methods they use to revise their papers (Cavanaugh & Song, 129). This demonstrates that whereas instructors might find one mode such as writing preferable, students might prefer a different mode altogether.

The intention of the feedback is to ensure the communication between the instructors and the students as well as to enable the students revise their work. However, it is not a guarantee that the students do revise the work as per the feedback given. This brings into question the type of language used by the instructors. A directive feedback on the other hand could therefore be posed as the opposite of the expressive as it details the directions the students should partake in as regards the written assignment. This is a deduction based on the implication of the expressive feedback and should be studied further to get evidence based empirical data on the same. In ‘An Analysis of Written Feedback on ESL Students’ Writing’ by Kelly Tee Pei Leng, the study established how students felt with each type of feedback.

The study established that most of the feedback received was directive at 77 percent with expressive feedback at 23 percent (Leng, 392). The students found the directive feedback to be focused and they liked it because it committed them to doing something. This means that they preferred feedback that was not quite direct as to point out what should be done. Instead, they wanted feedback that directed them to find the answer b themselves. The implication in this is that the students nee the feedback but they want to participate in the way forward and finding the solution because at the core of it, the work is theirs and they want it to seem as such. Manjet Singh (86) established in the study ‘Graduate Students’ Needs and Preferences for Written Feedback on Academic Writing’ that students preferred straightforward and specific feedback that gave clear directions.