I do find that the article is only talking about one kind of feedback. I do think here is something that can be gleaned from the feedback – for example, in my blog post on learning ‘at a distance’, i noted that my student felt the course load to be “heavy”, but when asked the number of hours they were spending on the course, it was actually low compared to the expectations of a graduate course. The feedback allowed me to “read between the lines”. But the ounce of truth in the Guardian article relates to learner preference. Here are draw upon: Kirschner, P. A., & van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2013). Do Learners Really Know Best? Urban Legends in Education. – where one of their legends is about learner preference. Learners may “prefer” to learn one way, but in reality that doesn’t mean they learn best that way. In many ways, I view learning as internal conflict – so if the learner isn’t uncomfortable they may not be learning – their preferred methods is what they are comfortable with, which may actually reduce the amount of actual learnings.
I do think we put too much weight on immediate post-course bubble sheets. I think we would do better to ask people 3 and 6 months after the course – then we’d getting a better grasp of what they actually learned – and their opinions about a teacher may very well have changed in that timeframe.