Abstract
Educators are trained to diagnose and fix gaps in students’ skills and knowledge. This pedagogy often leads to deficit thinking, where instructors blame students’ identities or backgrounds for challenges in school. With deficit thinking leading toward inequitable outcomes, recent research has responded with asset thinking to recognize students’ strengths, yet its intersection with instructors’ feedback remains largely unexplored. Drawing on deficit thinking scholarship (Davis & Museus, 2019; Valencia, 1997) and Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth model, this qualitative phenomenological study explored asset and deficit thinking in instructors’ mindsets and feedback practices. Participants consisted of five higher education English Language Arts instructors from a Midwest public university. Data sources included semi-structured interviews, visual artifacts, and documents such as feedback on student essays, assignment sheets, and rubrics. This study revealed five themes: feedback 1) involves complexities, 2) is influenced by the outside world, 3) relies on being relational, 4) positions the teacher as a guide, and 5) leads toward (contained) change. Instructors’ mindsets and feedback included mostly asset thinking, particularly navigational capital, while the few instances of deficit thinking reflected dominant perspectives. Mindsets were more varied than feedback practices, particularly in instructors’ articulation of resistant capital. These findings have implications for how instructors, students, and institutions approach feedback and position this study as a stepping stone for research that wishes to both navigate and resist traditional academic expectations.
Date Dissertation Completed
4-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctorate of Education
Department
Education Studies
Dissertation Advisor
Danielle Schock
Dissertation Committee Members
Nicholas Wysocki, Elizabeth Zold
Location
Winona, Minnesota
Recommended Citation
Simataa, Rebecca R., "Asset and Deficit Thinking in English Instructors’ Mindsets and Feedback on Student Writing" (2026). Education Doctorate Dissertations. 35.
https://openriver.winona.edu/educationedddissertations/35
Included in
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons
