Exploring feedback as dialogue in a distance learning context

This chapter combines a theoretical and empirical exploration of feedback on assessed writing as dialogue within a distance learning higher education context. Feedback continues to be widely regarded as problematic across the UK higher education sector. Because of the Open University’s open and distance tuition model and the crucial role of (usually written) assessment feedback within this, the question of feedback is especially critical. In response to the feedback ‘problem’, HE researchers and practitioners have widely promoted ‘dialogic’ processes, while interpreting ‘dialogue’ in various ways. Yet dissatisfaction with feedback persists from the perspectives of learners, educators and institutions. As one way of exploring this persistent conundrum, we draw on Bakhtin’s theories to conceptualise dialogue in the context of distance learning feedback. We show how his conceptualisations of the ‘monologic’, ‘dialectic’ and ‘dialogic’ as applied to all language use can illuminate the findings of a multi-voiced research project (Cobb, 2021) on feedback which gathered data from different participants within the feedback process. We explore the complexity of their lived experiences and practices and point to the crucial role of individual agency in the ‘uptake’ of feedback, despite the constraints of the assessment context. We conclude the chapter by suggesting some implications for practice.