Reflection through assessment: A systematic narrative review of teacher feedback and student self-perception

•Content situated feedback can assist students’ use of disciplinary language.•Dialogic feedback can provide opportunities for students to respond or reflect.•Empathic feedback can offer students ways to reflect on their identities.•Feedback that acknowledges students’ fluidity can encourage the writing process•Feedback that acknowledges students’ vulnerability can support confidence in writing. Beginning with two important meta-analyses by Hattie and Timperley (2007) and Shute (2008), the relationship between teacher feedback and student self-perception has received more attention. One way students enact a self-perception is by reflectively writing about their participation within a particular field of study. The current review analyzes how teacher feedback facilitates and supports the formation of self-perception made visible in students’ reflective writing. The following electronic databases were searched up to February 2018: CINAHL, Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, ERIC, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and Google Scholar. Five themes in total were constructed. These themes indicate contexts when feedback might lead to students reflecting through writing on a self-perception. Features of feedback that most likely promote this kind of reflection can be described as: content situated, dialogic, and empathic. As a secondary category of themes, feedback should position students as: fluid and/or vulnerable.