HOW ACADEMICS VIEW AND USE STUDENT FEEDBACK: AN ACTIVITY THEORY PERSPECTIVE

The way in which academic staff use student feedback to inform their academic practices differs among universities, academic units and even individual staff - especially where there might be a clash between institutional 'teaching' and 'research' cultures. The authors explored the views of academic staff at one South African university as to whether and how their academic work is mediated by such feedback. Activity theory (AT) served as a conceptual lens, while narrative data from a sample of academic staff across disciplinary clusters and post levels were analysed for a better understanding of the relationship between student feedback and how such feedback potentially influences academic work. Our findings indicated that an institutional focus primarily on research may significantly constrain the influence of student feedback on teaching practices. These findings also urge research-led universities to take cognisance of the intricate nature of the teaching and learning process, and of how teaching-related resources such as student feedback are influenced by other activity systems operating within the university context.