A comparative analysis of the skilled use of automated feedback tools through the lens of teacher feedback literacy

Effective learning depends on effective feedback, which in turn requires a set of skills, dispositions and practices on the part of both students and teachers which have been termed feedback literacy. A previously published teacher feedback literacy competency framework has identified what is needed by teachers to implement feedback well. While this framework refers in broad terms to the potential uses of educational technologies, it does not examine in detail the new possibilities of automated feedback (AF) tools, especially those that are open by offering varying degrees of transparency and control to teachers. Using analytics and artificial intelligence, open AF tools permit automated processing and feedback with a speed, precision and scale that exceeds that of humans. This raises important questions about how human and machine feedback can be combined optimally and what is now required of teachers to use such tools skillfully. The paper addresses two research questions: Which teacher feedback competencies are necessary for the skilled use of open AF tools? and What does the skilled use of open AF tools add to our conceptions of teacher feedback competencies? We conduct an analysis of published evidence concerning teachers’ use of open AF tools through the lens of teacher feedback literacy, which produces summary matrices revealing relative strengths and weaknesses in the literature, and the relevance of the feedback literacy framework. We conclude firstly, that when used effectively, open AF tools exercise a range of teacher feedback competencies. The paper thus offers a detailed account of the nature of teachers’ feedback literacy practices within this context. Secondly, this analysis reveals gaps in the literature, signalling opportunities for future work. Thirdly, we propose several examples of automated feedback literacy, that is, distinctive teacher competencies linked to the skilled use of open AF tools.