The Effect of Teachers’ Evaluative Feedback on Chinese Students’ Perception of Ability: a cultural and situational analysis

Abstract

Summary The research explored the effect of teachers’ evaluative feedback on students’ perception of ability. The subjects were 758 Chinese students from elementary schools, high schools, and a university in Hong Kong. Subjects rated ability and effort of two hypothetical students who achieved identical results (success or failure) in a mathematics test but received different feedback (praise, blame, or neutral feedback) from the teacher. They also rated the teacher's perception of their own and their friends’ ability and effort in a similar situation after a real mathematics test. The results of this study support previous findings which indicate that ability perception is influenced by cultural and contextual variables. Contrary to the findings with Western students, ability and effort were positively correlated. The importance of effort among the Chinese students appears to mitigate the effects of teachers’ feedback on students’ ability. Age‐related differences were also observed. The results are discu...