Feedback on teachers' journal entries: a blessing or a curse?

Giving feedback on journal entries in the context of teacher education programmes is a contested issue. While some educationists argue that it is necessary if Course Participants (CPs) have to conceptualise the complex process of reflective journaling, others argue that this has ethical implications that may curtail CPs from achieving critical analysis level of events, issues and situations leading to deeper reflections – one of the goals of feedback. This study sought to find out why, despite feedback being given on teachers’ journal entries during the Certificate of Education Programmes, they fail to move from the descriptive to analytical stage of deeper reflections. This was done by exploring teachers’ perceptions and experiences of feedback on their journal entries. This study established that teachers did not appreciate, and resented the feedback given on their journal entries. They expressed that the feedback and the way it was given not only discouraged them from journaling, but also made them feel de-motivated, thus, incompetent in the activity of reflective journaling. Hence feedback failed to achieve its goal of enhancing teachers’ deeper reflections