Feedback, iterative processing and academic trust : teacher education students' perceptions of assessment feedback

Feedback and reflective processes play an important role in learning with both teachers and students required to play active roles. The importance of feedback processes and practices takes on an added dimension in the field of teacher education as the assessment and feedback processes are also professional practices that students themselves will be enacting in their professional roles. To this end, feedback provides opportunities for students to develop their own professional assessment literacy but also draws attention to the role of the teacher-education lecturer or assessor and the roles and relationships involved. This article reports on a research study which investigated teacher education students’ perceptions of assessment feedback and how they used it. Drawing upon a sociocultural framing, findings highlight the importance of different mediating means including rules, roles and relationships, the practice of iterative processing and the importance of ‘academic trust’.