International Conference on Business Studies and Education (ICBE)

e-ISSN: 2785-9479

Enhancing Educational Excellence: A Conceptual

Paper on Credibility Feedback and Teaching
Quality among Faculty
Tang Yixuan1, Ying-Leh Ling2
1Faculty of Education, Language, Psychology & Music, SEGi University, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
E-mail: 575950348tyx@gmail.com

2Mathematics, Science and Computer Department, Polytechnic Kuching Sarawak, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
E-mail: drlingyingleh@gmail.com

Abstract
This paper critically examines the intersection of credibility feedback and teaching quality within contemporary
educational institutions. By synthesizing existing literature, it highlights the pivotal role of credibility feedback in
shaping teaching effectiveness and underscores the challenges faced by today's educational establishments in
elevating educational standards. The review underscores that credibility feedback profoundly influences teaching
quality, particularly emphasizing the significance of managerial attributes such as specialized knowledge,
effective communication skills, and equitability in fostering trust among educational staff. Consequently, the
establishment of robust systems for positive and constructive feedback emerges as a crucial avenue for future
research endeavors. This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on enhancing educational quality by
illuminating the nexus between credibility feedback and teaching effectiveness, thereby informing strategic
initiatives aimed at improving educational outcomes.
Keywords: Credibility feedback, teaching quality, relationship

between teaching quality and credibility feedback is

I. INTRODUCTION necessary.
With the rapid development of society and the rise
of a knowledge-based economy, higher education II. DEFINITION CONCEPT OF
institutions play a crucial role in promoting CREDIBILITY FEEDBACK
knowledge advancement and innovation (Iqbal, In organizational institutions, feedback is defined as
2021). Higher education has become a major a special case of a communication process in which
platform for fostering innovation, expanding the sender conveys messages to the receiver that are
horizons, and improving general literacy. Research intended to provide individuals with information
has shown that the quality of teachers' teaching plays about their behavior, performance, or learning
a key role in student outcomes (e.g., achievement progress (Wisniewski, Zierer, & Hattie, 2020).
and motivation) and teacher outcomes (e.g., Feedback can originate from external sources (staff-
effective pedagogical methods) (Burić & Kim, to-staff, staff-to-leadership feedback), and receivers
2020). Therefore, high-quality teaching is a societal receive the feedback to judge their performance
necessity. Improving teacher teaching is a accordingly. The basic concept of a feedback
comprehensive process that requires teachers to environment is closely related to the idea of a
continuously reflect on their teaching practices, feedback-oriented culture, which emphasizes how
listen to feedback from supervisors, colleagues, and feedback is processed and viewed as important in an
students, and make timely adjustments to their organization or environment and promotes the
teaching methods and strategies to adapt to the needs importance of staff making more use of feedback
of their students and the changing educational (Steelman, Levy, & Snell, 2004).
environment (Drago-Severson & Blum-DeStefano,
2017). This study is concerned that in education, In a feedback culture, feedback generated through
building trusting relationships and open lines of daily interactions influences employee beliefs and
communication are critical, and effective leadership behaviors. In contrast, feedback from managers is
feedback helps teachers better understand their critical to every organization, and research has
teaching styles and improve their effectiveness. shown that employees typically seek feedback from
Therefore, a clearer exploration of the relationship their supervisors rather than their coworkers (Lee,

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Accepted: 24 March 2024
Publisher: ICBE Publication
 International Conference on Business Studies and Education (ICBE)
e-ISSN: 2785-9479

Idris, & Tuckey, 2019). Providing feedback from improvement of teaching quality is based on the
supervisors can help staff to improve some issues classroom session, in which teacher-student
and increase staff performance. According to interaction and student autonomy are the antecedent
Steelman et al. (2004), the feedback environment factors for improving the quality of teaching and
was originally defined as a multi-source and multi- learning. Many studies have demonstrated the
dimensional structure, and therefore Steelman et al. importance of the classroom environment for high-
(2004) developed the Feedback Environment Scale quality teaching and learning, including classroom
(FES) to provide a diagnostic tool to assess the environment management, classroom session
perceived validity and status of the feedback process organization, student organization, student affective
in an organization. The Source of Credibility mastery, provision of feedback, student self-
Feedback Scale (CFS) is one of the sub-scales of the assessment and teacher-student peer assessment,
FES. In other words, teachers are more likely to trust clarity of content, and good communication, which
feedback from a person who is perceived to be are the dominant factors in classroom effectiveness.
knowledgeable and experienced in their subject Similar previous research has demonstrated that
area, and feedback from such a person is perceived effective teachers are more likely to exhibit a
to be more effective (Vangrieken, Meredith, Packer, supportive classroom climate, motivated lesson
& Kyndt, 2017; van de Ridder, Berk, Stokking, & management, clear curriculum goals, and a
Ten Cate, 2015). Characteristics that have been leadership-supportive climate (Dulay, 2023).
shown to increase the credibility of feedback Tamura and Uesugi's (2020) research suggests that
providers include being older, having long work effective teaching includes pre-class preparation,
experience, a background of expertise, classroom instruction, and post-classroom feedback,
communication skills, and social skills (Gabris & with classroom instruction being particularly
Ihrke, 2000; Martin, Guillaume, Thomas, Lee, & prominent in favor of teachers to innovate teaching
Epitropaki, 2016). Many studies have shown that the goals and develop student thinking activities.
dimensions used to increase credibility include Classroom management, teacher support, and
expertise, experience, honesty, respect, consistency cognitive activation are the three general aspects that
of words and actions, responsibility, self-awareness, the well-known German model of teaching quality
reliability, personal charisma, fairness, service, evaluates (Praetorius, Klieme, Herbert, & Pinger,
accuracy, age, social skills, and personality (Ryu & 2018). Teacher support refers to teachers modifying
Hong, 2020). Some researchers have argued that their instruction to the needs and goals of their
credibility is a key factor in determining whether students and creating supportive, motivating, and
learning signals such as feedback are influential. inspiring learning environments that help students
Feedback recipients are more satisfied with and reach their full potential. Classroom management,
willing to use feedback from high-credibility on the other hand, aims to enable teachers to
sources compared to low-credibility sources effectively coordinate and manage students through
(Watling, Driessen, van der Vleuten, & Lingard, a range of strategies, skills, and methods and to
2012; van de Ridder et al., 2015; Martin et al., 2016; ensure that instructional goals are met through
Katz, Rauvola, & Rudolph, 2021). organized guided instruction. Finally, cognitive
activation refers to the development of higher-order
III. DEFINITION CONCEPT OF TEACHING thinking in students that stimulates their
QUALITY understanding of deeper content. These days, many
Many scholars have given different perspectives on people utilize these dimensions of teaching quality.
the concept of teaching quality, Leon, Medina-
Garrido and Núñez (2017) argue that "teaching IV. PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER
quality" refers to teacher-specific behaviors that The research objectives of this study were to
allow students to feel autonomy, competence, and determine the measures of teacher quality, to
relatedness during the teaching and learning process analyze the correlates affecting teacher quality and
and promote student autonomy through the the correlates affecting credibility feedback, and to
provision of diverse learning resources, thus discover the interrelationships between credibility
encouraging students to explore and think on their feedback and improving teacher quality by
own, to promote student autonomy. Praetorius and reviewing the articles, to explore the ways to
Charalambous (2018) define quality of teaching and improve the quality of teaching.
learning as the content of practices that are co-
constructed by students and teachers and have a
positive impact on student outcomes, and that are
consistent with normative assumptions, values, and
beliefs. In summary, we can conclude that the
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Publisher: ICBE Publication
 International Conference on Business Studies and Education (ICBE)
e-ISSN: 2785-9479

V. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN sources (Gabriel, Frantz, Levy, & Hilliard, 2014).

CREDIBILITY FEEDBACK AND TEACHING Zhou (2003) suggested that supervisor feedback has
QUALITY IN PREVIOUS RESEARCH a direct impact on employee performance and
In educational institutions, giving feedback is emotional state. Positive supervisor feedback
important for managers not only to develop and (including praise, recognition, and rewards) can
maintain good working relationships and achieve the increase employees' satisfaction and work
results expected by managers, but also to increase engagement, enhance their motivation and self-
the self-awareness of staff (Mone, London, & Mone, confidence, and improve performance. Negative
2018). In the management process, if there is a lack feedback, on the other hand, may lead to staff
of feedback, the staff's behavior in the next work negativity and job dissatisfaction. Meanwhile,
process may not be reinforced or may even do the Gregory Beck and Carr (2011) made a similar
right thing wrong because of the lack of feedback. argument. A positive feedback environment helps
Therefore, feedback is an important tool for managers maximize their effectiveness and can help
managers to improve performance and a very teachers increase their self-confidence and
important management tool (Steelman et al., 2004). motivation. This creates a positive, interactive, and
effective learning environment and improves
Credibility feedback contains an important trust teacher performance in classroom management.
component that promotes the personal and Therefore, leaders create a positive feedback
professional development of subordinates and environment that signals to staff that feedback will
positively affects their productivity. A study by Li be consistent, available, and important (Tseng &
and Tan (2013) demonstrated the moderating effect Levy, 2018). In contrast, there is also research that
of trust on individual performance in organizational indicates that if feedback is inaccurate or unfair, it
relationships. They concluded that trusting staff are may lead to teacher frustration with the feedback,
more likely to believe in their abilities and actively which in turn affects the quality of instruction
seek development opportunities. The authors also (Gabriel, Frantz, Levy, & Hilliard, 2014).
found that trust is positively related to job
engagement and job satisfaction, and that trust has a Most relevant to the current study, the relationship
greater impact on individual performance in high- between instructional outcomes and performance
trust environments. This is consistent with the assessments in credibility feedback has been
findings of Byrne, Pitts, Wilson, and Steiner (2012). demonstrated in many different contexts. A study
The study concluded that trust and support can help from a Chinese context (Liu & Hallinger, 2018)
staff to reduce the stress of performance evaluations. reported that leaders promote mutual learning and
When staff believe that their supervisors are fair and growth among teachers and increase their
willing to provide support, they are more likely to effectiveness by creating a mutually learning and
accept the assessment and learn from it. Therefore, supportive work environment through motivation to
communicating with staff openly and honestly and continually improve teachers' competence and
providing constructive feedback is conducive to a performance. Zhang and Wong (2018) found in their
positive work environment. study that leaders' coaching and feedback had a
positive effect on teacher instruction. Specifically, a
Feedback from highly credible sources may person with efficient judgment, decision-making,
transform performance (Nielsen, Nielsen, organizational, creative, and communication skills is
Ogbonnaya, Känsälä, Saari, & Isaksson, 2017). more likely to have a trusting relationship, and
Steelman et al. (2004) demonstrated that feedback mentoring through leaders can contribute to
from sources of (a) competent leaders (b) familiar teachers' instructional outcomes.
with my job performance, (c) are motivated to
provide credibility feedback, and that feedback from The researcher found variables related to credibility
these sources of information about work behavior feedback such as fairness of performance
has a greater impact than feedback from leaders who assessment system, leadership support, and leader
are not perceived to be competent in assessing it. In trust were found to predict teaching quality and
past research on feedback, many scholars have teaching efficacy. Researchers have also found that
argued that feedback has an interactive effect, and receivers are more satisfied with highly credible
thus the information delivered by feedback also feedback by summarizing several studies on the
contains both positive and negative feedback, and satisfaction, self-efficacy, and behavior of feedback
research has demonstrated that negative feedback recipients (Moon, 2019). Although the impact of
information from high-credibility sources is more managers on educational outcomes in schools is
likely to be believed, and thus change performance, often indirect when a school is characterized by high
than negative information from low credibility levels of trust, they are more likely to have greater
confidence in their collective ability to succeed in
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Publisher: ICBE Publication
 International Conference on Business Studies and Education (ICBE)
e-ISSN: 2785-9479

achieving their goals, and managers and teachers can professional development, and overall performance
accomplish what the school needs to do. (Handford & Leithwood, 2013).

In summary, most research supports the existence of Feedback environment is a complex process, and
a positive relationship between credibility feedback according to Steelman et al.'s (2004) Feedback
and teacher quality. Specifically, a leader with Environment Scale, coworker support can also have
effective organizational, creative, and an impact on employee performance, and some
communication skills is more likely to have a studies have shown that coworker feedback
trusting relationship with their staff, which leads to environments can positively affect employees' role
constructive, fact-based feedback that contributes to clarity and job performance. Therefore, future
a positive culture of credibility feedback and research can continue to explore other variables in
promotes teacher quality (Gregory et al., 2011; Liu the feedback environment.
& Hallinger, 2018).
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e-ISSN: 2785-9479

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e-ISSN: 2785-9479

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e-ISSN: 2785-9479

AUTHOR’S INFORMATION

First Author: Tang Yixuan

Faculty of Education, Language, Psychology & Music, SEGi

University, No 9, Jalan Teknologi, Pju 5 Kota Damansara, 47810
Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia

E-mail: 575950348tyx@gmail.com

Second Author: Ying-Leh Ling

(Ph.D.)

Mathematics, Science and Computer Department, Politeknik Kuching

Sarawak, KM22, Jalan Matang 93050 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia

E-mail: drlingyingleh@gmail.com

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