Feedback revisited: Adding perspectives based on positive psychology. Implications for theory and classroom practice

• Consequences of the perspective of positive psychology on feedback.
• The importance of taking into account the emotions evoked by feedback.
• Challenging the over-simplification of feedback about the self and praise.
• Feedback on character strengths as a type of feedback on the self.
• Progress feedback as a complement to “gap” feedback.

Teacher feedback has mainly been described from the point of view of cognitive psychology. We aim to add to the body of knowledge on teacher feedback by considering the perspective of positive psychology. We describe possible consequences of two concerns of positive psychology: (1) the importance of (positive) emotions and (2) character strengths. We argue that emotions are an important issue in the discussion about feedback and challenge the over-simplification of feedback about the self. As a way of stimulating positive emotions and character strengths, we propose to focus on progress feedback as a complement to gap feedback.