The role of perspective-taking in mediating the relationship between teacher feedback and reading achievement

Teacher feedback has been acknowledged as an important facilitator for students’ learning performance. However, teachers’ feedback efforts are not always found to pay off, especially in the context of Confucian-heritage countries. Scholars are seeking answers from student agencies during feedback-taking. The current study aimed to examine the role of students’ perspective-taking in passing over the effect of teacher feedback on students’ reading test performance. We set the study in Hong Kong, where teacher feedback has often been reported to fail its aims. We used OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 data generated by 5665 15-year-old students. The results of multilevel structural equation modeling confirmed our hypothesis that perspective-taking significantly mediated the relation between teacher feedback and students’ reading achievement. Our results highlight the benefits of accounting for perspective-taking as a key element of student feedback literacy. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.