Students’ Feedback about Feedback; Have our PBL tutors started the shift towards a dialogic ask-tell-ask approach?

Objective: A paradigm shift towards a PBL bidirectional dialogic feedback can enhance learners’ performance. This study aimed to investigate undergraduate medical students’ perceptions of their PBL feedback.

Methods: We sent e-mail invitations to a web-based survey to year one and two students at College of Medicine, King Saud University. Items included the process, content, and benefits of PBL feedback.

Results: Of 209 respondents, 110 (53%) were first and 99 (47%) were second-year students. About 50% agreed that the feedback was regularly provided at scheduled timing and 72% perceived feedback environment as non-threatening. Agreement rates that the tutors asked students first to assess their performance, tell them what went well, what the areas for improvement are and develop with them an improvement plan were 59%, 61%, 61% and 52%, respectively. 61% agreed that tutors judged performance not personality. More year one students significantly agreed that the PBL feedback helped them to improve their knowledge acquisition and non-technical skills.

Conclusion: Many of our PBL tutors have started the shift to a dialogic bidirectional feedback. We recommend continuing the faculty development efforts, peer-reviewing, and seeking student’s feedback within the academic quality satisfaction surveys.