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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter includes two major sections. The first section is to review the theories related to negative feedback. The second section contains the theoretical
framework explaining how the researcher uses the related theories to find out the answers for the research problems mentioned in the first chapter.
A. Theoretical Description
The second section contains six sub sections, namely feedback and the impact on motivation, criteria of an effective feedback, negative feedback and the impact
on motivation, forms of negative feedback, directness in negative feedback, and the use of hedging in negative feedback.
1. Feedback and the Impact on Motivation
Weiner 1979 states “Feedback is a vital concept in most theories of learning
and is closely related to motivation. Behavioral theories tend to focus on extrinsic moti
vation such as rewards” as cited in Petchprasert, 2012, p. 1112. In learning, students need to be motivated and the job for giving the motivation is the job for
the lecturerteacher. The motivation is usually in form of feedback based on students’ performance. Feedback contains the students’ lacks and goods. Through
feedback, students are able to know how their current position are to the learning goals.
11 Schunk 1982 finds that effort feedback for past achievement led to more
rapid progress in skill development p. 18. Effort feedback is used to recognize student’s effort or performance. When students make progression on their learning
or when they make mistakes, the lecturers have to give comments in form of feedback to their performance. Knowing that they are making progress will
motivate the students on learning activity and make them more confident. In addition, students will be more motivated when the lecturers pay attention to the
students’ progression. It is similar to when someone is giving a speech; he will be more excited and will perform a good speech when the audience listen to him.
However, if the audience ignore his speech, he will just want to finish the speech as soon as possible and will not care about the quality of his speech. The students
must know that the lecturers care about what they are doing in order to progress in class. Thus, giving feedback is a must for lecturers to keep the students motivated.
2. Criteria of Effective Feedback
The criteria of effective feedback are based on Brookhart’s 2008 theory of
giving effective feedback. There are three aspects to consider in giving effective feedback according to Brookhart 2008. They must be clear, specific, and using
appropriate tone and word choice.
a. Clarity
The first criterion of good feedback is that the feedback should be understandable by the student. According to Brookhart 2008, good feedback
contains information that a student can use, which means that the student has to be able to hear and understand it p. 2. Every student has different vocabulary and
12 ability in processing feedback. Feedback may be considered having a good clarity
by a student, but may also be considered being not so clear by another student. Each student’s competency level in one class will differ. Their knowledge about language
and their ability to process information are not the same one and another. One student may be able to understand that one plus one equals two only from an
explanation by the teacher. However, other students may not. Some students may need further explanation about the material and some other may need examples. For
native English learners, the teacher may use more complex vocabulary, while for non-native English speakers the teacher should use less complex vocabulary. That
is why in giving feedback to a student, a lecturer must also consider the student’s
profile and give a clear feedback based on each student’s ability to receive information.
b. Specific
More specific feedback is considered to be more effective. As stated by Brookhart 2008,
“Teachers should make feedback specific enough so that students know what to do,
but not so specific that it’s done for them” p. 2. By giving a specific feedback, the student will know exactly where heshe has already been
good at and what heshe should improve. Giving feedback that is too general will have less impact compared to more specific feedback. Telling a student that heshe
needs to study more instead of telling himher that heshe needs to improve specifically will only make the student confused on what heshe should do in order
to improve hisher performance. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
13 When a person tells a singer that he needs more practice may only make the
singer be less motivated to sing, but telling him that he needs to practice more on high-pitch notes will motivate him to improve his ability in singing high-pitch
notes. Knowing specific areas to improve is good as the student will not be wasting time on trying to improve everything where most of them may have already been
good, instead, heshe can just focus on some areas where heshe needs to improve.
c. Proper Tone and Word Choice
Tone in giving feedback defines the result of the feedback. Brookhart 2008 states “Tone can inspire or discourage” p.34. Appropriate use of tone in giving
feedback will result in a good response over the feedback. The only problem is how appropriate is appropriate. Similar to the clarity section, it depends on the students.
Every student is unique, heshe will have hisher own criteria of appropriateness. One student may consider feedback as appropriate while others may consider it
harsh. The point is that the lecturer has to know each individual and use tone and word choice based on the student’s profile. The tone a lecturer should use in giving
feedback should show some respect to the student as a learner and inspire thought and curiosity. After receiving the feedback, the student must not feel that the
lecturer is a boss and should do what heshe wants. The student must feel that heshe is given a chance to think of what heshe should do in order to improve.
The word choice for the feedback also matters. Feedback like “You have to
practice more on using past tense and do the assignments on the book” may be too
bossy and may not give the student the opportunity to think and do something as heshe has to obey the command. Instead of saying that,
the lecturer can say “There PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
14 are still some mistakes on the grammar. On our book, we have some exercises that
can help you to practice.” The lecturer gives the student a chance to think about what heshe had done wrong and the lecturer also gives a suggestion to how to
improve the grammar skill. The student will be more involved and heshe will be more active in responding to the feedback.
The three criteria show that it is all a matter of student’s understanding on the feedback. Feedback is all about the students. Feedback are not for the lecturers to
show how good they are. Feedback is not used to tell the students “You are wrong
and I the lecturer am smarter than you.” Instead, feedback should be telling the students “You are good in that part, but you can improve this part to be better.”
Good feedback should be able to help the students grow. Feedback must not be confusing and too bossy as the students are learners not employees. By being
actively thinking, the learning activity will b e more effective as “Student-centered
methods have repeatedly been shown to be superior to the traditional teacher- centered approach
“Felder, n.d.. Being engaged in learning process will make the learning activity more effective. Students who try to improve because they want to
and because they know they can will be more motivated compared to students who try to improve because they are told to. The lecturer should give a room for the
students to think about the feedback and decide what they have to do to improve themselves.
3. Negative Feedback and Its Effect on Motivation
There are two kinds of feedback; positive and negative. Positive feedback is used to praise students for doing a good job. Meanwhile, negative feedback is
15 used to help students understand what has to be changed in an utterance
Rydahl, 2005, p. 4. Moreover, Reitbauer, et al. 2013 mention that negative feedback points out features of the learner’s language use, which do not conform to
a norm p. 9. Positive feedback is like some praise while negative feedback often feels like a slap on your face. Negative feedback contains what a person is doing
wrong and often tells the person what needs to be fixed. Negative feedback is the term used in psychology field. It is also known as corrective feedback in teaching
and learning field. As explained by Rizi and Ketabi 2015 “The current familiar
term “Corrective feedback” has been variously named in the history of the fields of second language teaching and learning, linguistics and psy
chology” p. 63. Chaudron states that
“Learners who do not work hard and perform poorly on a task may not benefit from feedback
” as cited in Petchprasert, 2012, p. 1113. Chaudron explains that negative feedback may not be beneficial to learners. It is
possible as the learners may not be self-motivated, they do not see why they have to learn. However, this is a matter of how the negative feedback is given. When the
negative feedback is given effectively, learners without self-motivation may become motivated. A student without any interest in English may become interested
when heshe is told about the potential he or she has. Negative feedback on students writing assignment may make the students realize that they have potential in
writing. From the negative feedback, they may realize that they have a good idea organizational skill but still lacking in grammar or vice versa. Hidden potential may
be seen through negative feedback and it may motivate the students. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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4. Forms of Giving Feedback
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