What is constructive feedback? Comparing the perspectives of supervisors and students

Abstract

Feedback from supervisors is of major importance in helping the PhD students to understand and learn the process of scientific writing and leads to increased quality of the written product. The present work aimed to deliver a preliminary descriptive view of feedback provision and reception along the process of preparing manuscripts for publication at LTH. The opinion and experiences of PhD students and supervisors were investigated. Five pairs of active supervisorstudent relationships that had recent experience of feedback on a manuscript were interviewed, following an interview questionnaire guide. Results indicate that the opinion of students about constructive feedback on written articles differs from those of supervisors. Although most students and supervisors coincide in that constructive feedback includes specific comments instead of remarks of general nature, supervisors consider providing feedback on the structure of the paper a good feedback feature, while students do not mention this aspect at all. Not all supervisors perceive differences in their students feedback need as they progress in their studies. However, from the student perspective the feedback they receive shifts from basic and detailed items to more comprehensive comments as they get closer to the thesis preparation. The knowledge of established feedback recommendations seems limited among teachers and practically inexistent among PhD students.