This study aims to identify the psychometric properties of the instruments and feedback environment practices modified according to the situation and the uniqueness of the education organization’s management system in Malaysia. A total of 32 items of Malay translation which have been converted from the original instrument for feedback environment built by Steelman, Levy, and Snell (2004) were used in this study. Data for this study were randomly obtained from 251 selected lecturers from three polytechnics. The results of factor analysis obtained six factors, explaining 66.1 percent of the variance change. Meanwhile, the level of feedback environment through descriptive analysis shows that the dimensions of feedback credibility, feedback quality, and providing feedback indicated a high level of practice. However, favorable feedback, unfavorable feedback, source availability, and promotes feedback seeking showed moderate practices. These results indicate that the feedback environment scale modified in this study could represent well the seven dimensions intended as a real version of Steelman et al. (2004) and provide strong justification for using the scale of the feedback environment in the education organization in Malaysia. In practice, the findings also strengthen the organizational support for increasing the potential among the followers.

1. Ling Ying Leh
Abdul Ghani Kanesan Abdullah
Aziah Ismail
FEEDBACK ENVIRONMENT PRACTICES IN EDUCATION ORGANIZATIONS
School of Educational Studies
UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

2. •Providing feedback about job performance is important in every organization.
–To maintainand enhancemotivation and job satisfaction among employees (Lam, Yik, & Schaubroeck, 2002).
–Fail to respond to the employees, the vision, mission, talent, and competence among the leaders and followers cannot be attributed to a reality without feedback.
•Employees play an active role to obtain and interpret the feedback received from the leaders (Ashford, Blatt, & VandeWalle, 2003).
INTRODUCTION

3. •Feedback
–In the context of education, the feedback can be referred to as the information given to the teachers based on the performance that reflects the adequacy of the quantity or the quality of teaching performance.
FEEDBACK ENVIRONMENT

4. •Feedback Environment
–Daily feedback conducted through the performance evaluation (Steelman, Levy, & Snell, 2004).
–Steelman et al. (2004) formed the instrument used to diagnose the extent to which the organization supports the feedback process by focusing on employee perceptions about
•Source credibility
•Feedback quality
•Feedback delivery
•Favorable feedback
•Unfavorable feedback
•Feedback availability
•Encouraging feedback seeking
FEEDBACK ENVIRONMENT

5. •To identify and describe the psychometric properties of the modified instruments of Feedback Environment Scale according to the unique culture of the education organization in Malaysia.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

6. •Involved 251 lecturers of Category 1 (Service Circular No. 33, 2007) randomly from four polytechnics at the states of Penangand Sarawak.
–Represent 251 lecturers’ perception on the leader who are Head of Program / Head of Course based on their evaluation.
RESEARCH SAMPLE

7. •Survey methodto collect data.
•Consist a questionnaireprepared to be answered by the respondents. Two sections including respondent’s demographic background and the feedback environment.
•Section 2–respondents are asked to give responses on the feedback environment created at their workplace.
–Feedback Environment Scale (FES) originally built by Steelman et al. (2004) used to diagnose the feedback process that occurs in an organizational setting.
–7 dimensions (32 items) based on seven-point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”.
RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

8. •The questionnaire was translated into Malay language and modified to suit the current environment based on the expert advises.
•For example:
–“My supervisor is generally familiar with my performance on the job” was translated to
•“Ketua Program / Ketua Kursus sudah biasa dengan prestasi kerja saya”
•The reliability obtained from the study for the entire 32 items was 0.934. Thus, these translated items was shown to have the reliability and validity convncing as in the study by Steelman et al. (2004).
RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

9. RESEARCH FINDINGS
•In determining the level of feedback environments in educational organizations, mean scores between 0.0 and 3.0 as low, 3.1 and 5.0 as moderate, while the mean score above 5.0 as high.

10. •Factor analysis determination of feedback environment questionnaire
–The first factor with a new construct “The Quality of Feedback” contains ten items carried the dimensions of (1) “Feedback Credibility” and (2) “Feedback Quality”. Explained 39.3% of variance in these constructs.
–The second factor “Feedback Transmission” explained 16.1% of variance in these constructs called (1) Feedback Delivery and (2) Feedback Availability.
–The third factor –“Constructive Feedback” explained 6.1% and the fourth factor –“Promote Feedback Seeking” explained 4.6%.
–The reliability of Cronbach’s Alpha for each factor -.951, .901, .857, and .720. Overall the reliability for the 25 items was .927.
–Seven items were dropped from the instrument.
RESEARCH FINDINGS

11. •Six factors have emerged in the feedback environment scale modified version in the education organization in Malaysia explaining 66.1% of the variance change. These six dimensions that emerged were found to have the relationship with each other.
–The Quality of Feedback
•Feedback source credibility
•Feedback quality
–Feedback Transmission
•Feedback delivery
•Feedback availability
–Constructive Feedback
–Promote Feedback Seeking
DISCUSSION, RESEARCH IMPLICATION & CONCLUSION

12. •For the subscale “Unfavorable Feedback” as contained in the original FES was released in the modified version of this study.
–May be due to the feedback in reminder form in the context of Malaysia culture is considered as constructive feedback and improve the job performance.
DISCUSSION, RESEARCH IMPLICATION & CONCLUSION

13. •Lastly, the result of this study provide important implications for the management of environmental education organization for positive feedback and encouraging need to be implemented comprehensively in Malaysia.
–Feedback provided to the educators in education organizations need to take into account the dimensions of the feedback environment that can help improve teaching self-efficacy.
–Overall, this study provides convincing support for the need to take into account the dimensions of feedback environment to improve his potential in educational organization.
DISCUSSION, RESEARCH IMPLICATION & CONCLUSION