Teachers’ Feedback Practices, Students’ Engagement and Academic Adjustment: Moderating Effects of Gender

Abstract

This study developed a structural path model that explained economics students’ academic adjustments using teachers’ feedback and students’ engagement, taking cognisance of the moderating effects of students’ gender. This study used a correlational research design. Through random sampling, 150 participants were recruited for this study. The data collection instruments used were questionnaires on teachers’ oral and written feedback, students’ engagement, and academic adjustments. Model fitness tests were established using Partial Least Square statistical tools. Research questions were answered using path diagrams and path coefficients. The study revealed that the most meaningful recursive structural model that explains students’ academic adjustment in economics as moderated by their gender is a model involving teachers’ feedback practices and students’ engagement. This study revealed that the combined effects of teachers’ oral and written feedback and students’ academic engagement accounted for 93% of variations in students’ academic adjustment. Similarly, teachers’ feedback practices accounted for 85% of variations in students’ academic engagement. Finally, students’ gender was a significant moderator of the relationship between teachers’ feedback practices, students’ engagement, and academic adjustments. This study is significant because it is the first of its kind to develop a structural moderating effect of gender on the relationship between teachers’ feedback practices, students’ engagement, and academic adjustment. This study recommends that economics teachers use feedback that stimulates students’ engagement to enhance academic adjustment. In addition, school administrators should train and retrain economics teachers on effective and sufficient feedback practices for enhancing students’ academic adjustment.