Do well-regarded university teachers exhibit feedback literacy? Examining the validity of a competency framework

Recent scholarship has advanced the notion of teacher feedback literacy (TFL) as necessary to foster student uptake of feedback and feedback literacy. However, the literature falls short of empirical work that demonstrates how these ideas translate into practice. This paper investigates the extent to which the feedback practices of highly regarded university teachers align with proposed macro, meso, and micro level TFL competencies. Drawing on semi-structured interview data gathered from 33 associate and full professors across five universities in Australia, Denmark, and Norway, a deductive thematic analysis revealed that all levels of competencies were evident and showed a relatively balanced distribution overall among the three levels, although the prominence of competencies within each level varied. Most of the participants (85%) exhibited competencies across all three levels. Feedback practices such as effective resource use, dialogic feedback design, and constructive feedback were more prominent, whereas managing feedback pressures and differentiating feedback occurred less frequently. An inductive analysis yielded two additional competencies related to the relational dimensions of TFL and meta-feedback practices. This paper offers an empirical contribution to the TFL research and concludes by providing practical implications for educational institutions to enhance feedback practices.