Deconstructing constructive criticism: The nature of academic emotions associated with constructive, positive, and negative feedback

This study's approach to understanding constructive criticism, a ubiquitous learning experience but understudied topic in educational research, involved distinguishing it from positive and negative feedback via the emotions associated with receiving feedback. Undergraduates' perceptions of constructive criticism revealed that nearly all included an element of improvement, with many adding aspects of mentioning strengths or weakness and manner of delivery. Second, as students contemplated receiving constructive, positive, and negative feedback, they reported different emotions, both as indicated by different emotion factor structures for each of the feedback situations and by the magnitude to which they endorsed each factor. Third, students who defined constructive criticism as more disapproving endorsed lower levels of pleased satisfaction than students who held more optimistic views of what constitutes constructive criticism. Fourth, students identified as feedback-seekers reported higher levels of pleasant and lower levels of unpleasant emotions than feedback-avoiders after constructive and positive feedback.