Assessment feedback for student learning

Assessment feedback plays a crucial role in supporting student learning and development. As Dawson et al. (2019) explain, effective feedback should serve the following purposes:

• Facilitate the development of self-regulation and self-evaluation skills in students.
• Encourage students to engage in reflection and critical thinking about their learning.
• Provide guidance and suggestions for improvement on specific tasks or skills.
• Motivate students to continue learning and progressing towards their goals.

The traditional approach to feedback

Let’s first consider the characteristics of the ‘traditional’ approach to feedback:

• Feedback is unidirectional, transmitted from an external agent (e.g. educator) to the student.
• There is often no certainty that students have read, understood, or acted on the feedback provided.
• Students only identify feedback as the final mark or comment on a piece of work.

Does this sound familiar?

Barriers to student engagement

In his work on facilitating productive feedback in higher education, Jonsson (2013) highlights several barriers that can hinder student engagement with traditional feedback approaches, including:

• Feedback is perceived as too general or lacking in specificity.
• Feedback is not timely or received too late to be actionable.
• Feedback is overly critical or discouraging, rather than constructive.
• Students lack the skills or knowledge to effectively interpret and apply the feedback.

Moving to a more learner-centred approach to feedback

Carless (2015) advocates for a shift towards a more learner-centred approach to feedback, which:

• Is a process (‘feedback loops’) rather than a single one-shot product.
• Emphasises dialogue (with educator, peer, other contact, or self) and sensemaking.
• Encourages student engagement and active participation in the feedback process.
• Focuses on providing actionable guidance for improvement and future learning; and
• Promotes the development of self-regulation and self-evaluation skills in students.

What makes effective feedback?

A large Australian survey by Dawson et al. (2019) identified three key characteristics of effective feedback:

Source: Dawson et al. (2019) p.30.

As these statistics reveal, there were significant differences between staff and students. Reflecting on this finding, Dawson et al. (2019) suggest that one possible explanation for this is that “educators may be more aware of design than students; feedback design can take educators significant time and consideration, whereas students may not notice the design and instead focus on the products of the design (e.g. comments)” (p.30).

UOW Policy related to feedback

In the UOW Teaching & Assessment Policy, Section 13 – Feedback on Assessment Tasks sets out 10 criteria that every subject must adhere to. It is important that as a UOW educator, you are aware of these expectations when designing feedback opportunities.

Critical criteria include:

• Students will receive feedback on performance in all assessment tasks, with the exception of a final examination.
• Students in 100 level undergraduate subjects and level 800 postgraduate subjects can expect to receive descriptive feedback (in addition to the provision of a numerical grade if graded) on at least one assessment activity by the census date for the session in which the subject is delivered to help guide future progress.
• All students can expect to receive feedback on at least one graded assessment task prior to the deadline for students to withdraw from a subject without academic penalty (week 9 in a standard session or week 6 in a trimester).

Additionally, the UOW Teaching & Assessment Policy provides four criteria in the Assessment feedback supports student learning principle, found in Section 3 – Policy Principles.

References

Dawson, P., Henderson, M., Mahoney, P., Phillips, M., Ryan, T., Boud, D., & Molloy, E. (2019). What makes for effective feedback: Staff and student perspectives. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(1), 25–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1467877

Jonsson, A. (2013). Facilitating productive use of feedback in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 14(1), 63–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787412467125