Student Feedback Literacy from a Critical Perspective: A Neurodivergence-Affirming Review

Abstract

A feedback literate student possesses the competencies necessary to make effective use of feedback. The framework of student feedback literacy has informed institutional interventions to improve student progress in higher education. However, current conceptualisation of student feedback literacy is yet to consider minority perspectives, including those of neurodivergent people. It is therefore unclear how minoritised students’ experiences with developing feedback literacy differ. Synthesising neurodivergent students’ perspectives with sociocultural and political understandings of feedback, this critical review analyses implicit power imbalances, discrimination, and normative expectations in the feedback literacy framework. The review focuses on the conception of making judgements and managing affect, critiquing the implicit objective conception of evaluative judgement and individualisation of responsibility for affective response. The review proposes two concepts in the student experience of feedback literacy: Evaluative Masking as a behaviour suppressing authentic academic expression, and Constructive Defensiveness as a misunderstood but valid response to feedback. Future research directions are noted to facilitate reconceptualisation of the framework to create a neurodivergent-affirming understanding of student feedback literacy. This review lays the basis for future minority perspectives to be incorporated into feedback literacy, and the adoption of practices that will make developing student feedback literacy more accessible and equitable.