Explore the Student Feedback Literacy Instrument (SFLI)
Open access resources and materials below
Explore the Student Feedback Literacy Instrument (SFLI)
Open access resources and materials below
What is Student Feedback Literacy?
A difference that matters
Student differ in how they engage with feedback and how much they benefit from feedback. Feedback literacy captures these student features by describing the set of attitudes, abilities, and habits to make sense of and utilize feedback.
The authors of a classic paper define it as: “the understandings, capacities and dispositions needed to make sense of information and use it to enhance work or learning strategies.” (Carless & Boud, 2018, p.1316)
The Student Feedback Literacy Instrument (SFLI)
Use the SFLI in your teaching or research
We developed a self-report instrument to measure student feedback literacy and validated it with student samples across cultural contexts and languages. The initial instrument was designed and assessed in Woitt et al., (2025). The full SFLI instrument, presented in Weidlich et al. (2025), consists of 22 items across two dimensions: feedback attitudes and feedback practices. The short form version SFLI-S consists of 11 items. Both versions of the SFLI are available in English, German, and Turkish.
See below resources for more information.
Insights from using the SFLI in research
"For teacher education students, sophisticated feedback worked best when paired with high feedback literacy; without it, the added benefits disappeared compared to simple feedback."
Read the paper
Weidlich, J., et al., (2025). Highly informative feedback using learning analytics: how feedback literacy moderates student perceptions of feedback. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 22(1), 43.
"When comparing teacher, peer, and LLM feedback, university students preferred the LLM’s comments—but their work improved most after teacher feedback. Only those with strong feedback literacy gained this extra benefit."
Read the paper
Weidlich, J. et al., (2025). Teacher, Peer, or AI? Comparing Effects of Feedback Sources in Higher Education. Computers and Education Open, 100300.