Connecting feedback to self-efficacy: Receiving and providing peer feedback in teacher education

Feedback can play a vital role in fostering teacher self-efficacy. Social comparisons and feedback valence (positive vs. negative feedback) are assumed to have a large impact on self-efficacy. Therefore, how pre-service teachers perceive social comparisons and feedback valence in peer feedback and the extent to which pre-service teachers (bachelor/master students) and teacher trainers incorporate comments that can have an impact on self-efficacy into their peer feedback merit investigation. Two studies were conducted. The first showed that peer feedback consisting of a social comparison and with positive feedback valence resulted in greater willingness to improve and positive affect. The second study revealed that teacher trainers’ feedback was more specific, whereas bachelor students’ feedback contained more social comparisons than did master students’ and teacher trainers’. Future research and practical implications are discussed.