Giving Feedback
Did you know
Did you know Chinese students expect to receive scores, grades and feedback only from instructors and professors?
These students rarely have the opportunity to give peer feedback in class.
Although most Chinese students believe critical evaluations provide useful and beneficial information, they are still concerned with loss of face when receiving negative feedback from people other than their teachers.
How can you help?
Provide a template in English for indicating agreement or disagreement: I agree…/I like how you…/It is great that you … I wonder if you have thought about…
Lessen face-to-face critical evaluation by using online platforms or discussion boards in which to provide written feedback; Consider allowing students the opportunity to provide feedback anonymously
A student’s perspective
“At the very beginning of the first semester in the US for my graduate studies, when people give me negative feedback, criticism, I was very quick to think of it as a personal attack on my character, even if it’s really critical and it wasn’t meant to be personal, but I will take it as personal. After a while, I read my American peers’ critical feedback and I am strongly impressed by how polite their feedback is, and I’ll try to imitate the same writing style. That’s how I learned. First, I may be a little bit more direct, but after I listened to people's evaluation of me, I thought my feedback was too direct or maybe it’s not a good way to do this in this situation. I just tried to adjust more.”
