Feedback for Inclusion in VET: A Study of Teacher Practices Amidst Finnish Learning Support Reform

Feedback plays a central role in vocational education and training (VET), supporting learning, motivation, competence development, and inclusion. In Finland, students’ right to receive feedback is explicitly stated in the Act on Vocational Education and Training (531/2017), positioning feedback as both a pedagogical and a legal responsibility. At the same time, Finland is undergoing a major reform of learning support, with changes extending to vocational education from 2026. This reform aims to strengthen inclusive practices and early support. Despite these developments, limited empirical research has examined how feedback is enacted in everyday VET practices from the perspective of those primarily responsible for providing it: teachers in educational institutions. This paper addresses this gap by examining how VET teachers experience, interpret, and enact feedback practices in relation to learning support and inclusion, drawing on a complete dataset of 39 teachers across five Finnish colleges.

The study is guided by the following research questions:

1. How do VET teachers conceptualise their role in providing feedback, and what challenges and constraints shape their feedback practices in school‑based learning contexts?

2.     How do teachers’ experiences of feedback relate to the objectives of the Finnish learning support reform and the statutory right to feedback?

This qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and teaching observations with 39 VET teachers purposively sampled from five Finnish colleges representing three institutional types: a general VET college, an inclusive VET college, and a foundation-based specialist provider. Participants came from nine vocational fields (construction, IT, logistics, boat-making, catering, business, healthcare, mathematics, and electrical/automotive). All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis with a hybrid inductive-deductive coding approach (Braun & Clarke, 2021; Laari, 2025), supported by NVivo software. Ethical procedures followed GDPR and TENK (2019) guidelines. Interviews explored experiences of providing feedback, challenges in inclusive practice, and perceptions of the alignment between feedback practice and legal/structural requirements. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using qualitative content analysis supported by NVivo software, allowing systematic coding, identification of themes, and comparison across teacher and trainer perspectives. The analysis examined both role-specific patterns and shared themes, including practical constraints, ethical and legal considerations, and professional development needs. This approach enabled a nuanced understanding of how teachers and trainers operationalise feedback practices and how these practices relate to students’ learning support rights. All research procedures followed ethical guidelines in accordance with GDPR and national ethical norms (European Union, 2016; Finnish National Board on Research Integrity, 2019).

Findings reveal four interconnected themes. First, written feedback via the Päivä Kirja (daily task book) and platforms (Wilma, Moodle) is largely inaccessible to students with learning difficulties, while oral, face-to-face feedback is universally preferred but time-intensive. Second, teachers face a persistent dilemma between honesty and constructiveness, compounded by a lack of formal training in feedback pedagogy. Third, structural inequalities affect students with specific learning difficulties (dyslexia, ADHD, central auditory processing disorder), immigrant-background (S2) learners (including safety risks in workshop settings), and those in workplace training because a non-disclosure gap prevents supervisors from being informed of students’ needs. Fourth, teachers urgently demand training in feedback for diverse learners, protected time for individualized feedback, multimodal tools (audio, video), and institutional trust that prioritizes support intensity over performance metrics. The study argues that achieving inclusive VET requires coherent support structures that enable teachers to deliver feedback that genuinely supports diverse learners, and that the 2026 learning support reform must address these systemic constraints to uphold students’ statutory right to feedback.

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