Nurse teachers’ conceptions and practices of written feedback in Karachi

Abstract

Background: Written Feedback (WFB) plays a significant role in student’s learning in terms of improvement of their academic writing skills. However, the quality of WFB may be affected by various personal and contextual factors. This study aimed to identify nurse teachers’ conceptions and practices of WFB on written assignments in nursing degree offering institutions in Karachi, Pakistan.

Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used to answer the study questions. The study was conducted at 11 nursing schools in Karachi by recruiting those teachers who were teaching in nursing degree programs. The sample size of the study consists of 80 teachers. Universal sampling technique was used to select the subjects of the study.

Results: The study result consists of demographic information of the participants, teachers’ conceptions and their practices of WFB. Although majority (92%) of the teachers believed that WFB is important for students’ learning, they acknowledged that they were not able to provide WFB at optimum level to their students. This gap in practice is attributed to various personal, contextual, and organizational factors; among them, the highest reported factors were teachers’ lack of training for provision of WFB (84%), distraction in the environment (78%), and constraints of time due to teacher’s workload (74%).

Conclusions: The importance of WFB for students’ learning is well established in the literature. However, the preparation of teachers and an enabling environment to facilitate teachers for optimum practices of WFB needs considerable attention by educational institutions.