ÜLIÕPILASTE TAGASISIDE ÕPPEJÕU PILGU LÄBI – USKUDA VÕI MITTE?
Student Feedback in the Eyes of the University Teacher – Useful or Useless?

Summary/Abstract: Academic staff in universities must be self-regulatory in many aspects of their work. In research external feedback through peer-reviewed articles, or grant evaluations constantly guide the work, but in teaching there is still a heavy reliance on self-evaluation and increasingly, on student feedback.This article is based on interview data from 39 University of Tartu academic staff members collected in 2012, a year after implementation of new student feedback system. Interviews focused on student feedback, functions of the feedback for the lecturers, coping with the feedback and feedback as the source for change in teaching.The results of the interviews demonstrated that the importance of the student feedback is dependent upon three key aspects – what teachers think about the feedback system, how teachers perceive the students as feedback givers, and finally, how teachers perceive themselves. All of these factor scan both negatively and positively contribute to the acceptance or rejection of student feedback results. Feedback enables professional development when university teachers consider it trustworthy and understandable, and when they understand the feedback system and its overall purpose, and when they are able to cope with the emotional side of the feedback. Unfortunately, many teachers interpret feedback in a way that tends to hinder their professional development, rather than support it.

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