How to Make Students Feel Safe and Confident? Designing an Online Training Targeting the Social Nature of Peer Feedback

Abstract

Peer feedback has proven to be very beneficial for student learning; however, by its social nature, peer feedback raises concerns for many students. To diminish these, and maximize the benefits of a peer feedback activity, we created an online training targeting psychological safety and trust. The objective of this chapter is to describe the design process and to detail the composition of the training. The training was delivered to higher education students and included five stages: discovery of students’ representation, lecture on how to provide effective feedback, peer feedback practice, role-play and discussion in small groups and summary of key learning points. A questionnaire one month after the training and interviews with five students revealed that students’ engagement in and perceptions of the training were highly variable. Implications for research and practice are discussed.