VIRTUAL: Applying Education

Abstract

Students’ attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs play an essential role in their ability to produce innovative, creative work. Self-efficacy, a construct of the cognitive theory, defines one’s belief in their capacity to reach a specific goal and is a critical variable that predicts students’ motivation and ability to perform a specific task successfully. This paper critically examines the quality of feedback in design education, arguing that it has a direct positive or negative impact on students’ sense of self-efficacy. Solely corrective feedback given within a poorly established learning milieu that does not allow a relationship of trust to flourish negatively impacts students’ thoughts and self-esteem. It is hypothesized that nurturing feedback has the potential to positively impact students’ self-efficacy and increase their overall effort and perseverance. This paper reveals the results of a case study conducted in a senior design studio course with 16 students of the Multimedia Design program and one instructor in the Department of Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah (UAE). The paper reports on problems created by a lack of appropriate feedback, such as students’ focus on grades, feedback found to be ineffective or judgmental, lack of ability to create psychological safety or deliver unsupportive feedback, or in a disrespectful tone. It was established that nurturing feedback enhanced students’ sense of self-efficacy. The paper proposes a set of strategies for transforming feedback into a tool for nurturing students’ self-efficacy and offers suggestions for further research on this complex dynamic.