From Fear to Opportunity: Unlocking the Potential of Bidirectional Feedback in Higher Education

Bidirectional feedback has the potential to significantly benefit students by enhancing learning success and goal achievement, while also enabling teachers to better address students’ needs and improve learning material. However, current feedback practices face several challenges, including students’ difficulty in formulating clear and actionable feedback, the effort required for both students and teachers to engage in meaningful feedback dialogues, and the burden on teachers to manage and respond to a high amount of feedback across diverse learning materials. These challenges often lead to concerns about teacher overload, which can hinder the adoption of bidirectional feedback practices. We leverage an existing bidirectional feedback tool, including its process model, computational design, and Moodle implementation for self-assessment tasks. Using data from three consecutive semesters in a B.Sc. Computer Science distance learning course, we show that the tool does not increase feedback overload for teachers. Instead, it enables a balanced flow of constructive and positive feedback, which teachers found actionable and useful for improving assignments and supporting learning. By comparing the three semesters, we demonstrate that the tool successfully mitigates concerns about feedback overload while maintaining the benefits of bidirectional feedback. This finding highlights the usability and sustainability of the approach, offering a practical solution for integrating bidirectional feedback into higher education without overwhelming teachers.