Exploring the Effectiveness of Feedback on Students’ Engagement and Participation in their Online Classes

This study aims at exploring the effectiveness of feedback on students’ engagement and participation in their online classes. More specifically, the study examines how positive reinforcement using feedback in an online learning environment can increase student participation and engagement in the classroom. Currently, the researcher is struggling in finding ways of improving student engagement in the classroom as well as increasing participation. Regular feedback is provided to students only when submitting assignments or when students demonstrate mistakes in their answers (corrective feedback), however, supportive positive feedback that asserts correct responses is not common practice in the researcher’s classes. Therefore, this study proposes the utilization of supportive positive feedback throughout every class session in high frequencies in an attempt to increase student engagement and participation, since prior studies have shown a positive relationship between consistent positive feedback and motivation in general (Chakraborty and Nafukho, 2014 [4]; Cimen and Gakmak, 2020; Miltiadou and Savenye, 2003 [10]). The study combines two key Areas from the UKPSF since it suggests the use of giving feedback to learners in order to develop and improve effective learning environments. The findings of the study further support previous studies suggesting the positive effect of using feedback as a positive reinforcement strategy on student engagement.