Assessing student writing assignments and providing effective feedback are a complex pedagogical skill teacher candidates need to master. Scarce literature has closely examined the type of feedback that pre-service high-school teachers spontaneously deliver when assessing student writings, which is the main goal of our study. In a sample of 255 high school teacher candidates, we examined the type of feedback that they provided when assessing two writing assignments that differed in quality. One thousand eight hundred thirty-five comments were analyzed and coded into 11 sub-categories. Results showed that candidates’ feedback not only focused on task performance but also on the writing process. Although candidates provided critical and past-oriented evaluations frequently, they also crafted feedback in a neutral tone and included future-oriented suggestions. Further, feedback varied as a function of candidates’ gender, academic discipline, and students’ quality of writing. Teacher training programs may use this information to design resources to address nuances of feedback provision.

Background: Delivering effective feedback to large groups of students represents a challenge for the academic staff at universities. Research suggests that undergraduate students often ignore the Elaborated Feedback (EF) received via digital learning environments. This may be because instructors provide feedback in written format instead of using more engaging channels (e.g., audiovisual).Objectives: This quasi‐experimental study examines the extent to which feedback format (video vs. written) influences students' perceptions of feedback, their decision to access EF messages related to high‐stakes assignments in digital environments, and its impact on academic performance, while considering the effect of their academic engagement.Methods: A total of 171 undergraduate students received generic EF messages through a learning platform the day after submitting each course assignment. 78 students received EF in written format and 93 in video format.Results and Conclusions: Our results showed that feedback format influenced students' decision to access EF and their academic performance, but not their feedback perceptions. Students in the written‐feedback group accessed EF messages more often, but students who received video‐feedback performed better than their counterparts in the written‐feedback group. Moderation analysis showed that the relationship between the feedback format and students' academic performance was moderated by their academic engagement, suggesting that students with lower levels of academic engagement may benefit from video‐feedback.Takeaways: The results reveal that using video feedback in digital environments may influence students' decisions to process EF and their academic achievement, especially when it comes to students with lower levels of academic engagement.

‘In your opinion, what are some important research questions, problems or challenges that scholars in your field of specialization should address in the coming years? What types of studies should be conducted to move your field further? Please justify’. This prompt was posed by the incoming Editor of JSED to the new team of Deputy and Associate Editors in the journal’s three thematic areas (human development, learning and education), who were invited to co-author this Editorial. We briefly describe the history of JSED, present the composition of its new Editorial Board, highlight modifications recently introduced in our aims and scope and inform readers about our vision, goals and strategies for the upcoming years. The next section presents the Editors’ individual responses to the above-mentioned prompt, in the spirit of sharing perspectives with our scientific community. Finally, we identify common topics that emerged within the three thematic areas and encourage authors to send us high-quality manuscripts that fill the identified research gaps. JSED aims to foster a paradigm of ‘glocalization’ in development, learning and education research.