SETU and units

The teaching staff gave me helpful feedback

Feedback given to students can take a range of forms, including informal discussions with students on matters related to the unit, replies to email and phone queries, etc., but it generally refers to the feedback provided to students on returned items of assessment. While students do seek summative feedback in the form of marks/grades, most also seek formative feedback to assist in deep learning in their studies (Higgins, Hartley & Skelton, 2002). The Australian Universities Teaching Committee (AUTC) investigation of assessment practices in Australian universities found that students, "...wish to understand how grades are determined and expect timely feedback that 1) explains the grade they have received, 2) rewards their achievement, 3) offers suggestions for how they can improve, and 4) can be used within the subject or their course" (James, McInnis & Devlin, 2002). These findings are embodied in their 'indicators of effective assessment' given in the previous section. The literature shows that the quality of formative feedback is strongly linked to student achievement. From a study of the conditions for effective assessment in higher education, the following conditions relating to feedback are offered:

• Sufficient feedback is provided, both often enough and in enough detail;
• The feedback focuses on students' performance, on their learning and on actions under the students' control, rather than on the students themselves and on their characteristics;
• The feedback is timely in that it is received by students while it still matters to them and in time for them to pay attention to further learning or receive further assistance;
• Feedback is appropriate to the purpose of the assignment and to its criteria for success;
• Feedback is appropriate, in relation to students' understanding of what they are supposed to be doing;
• Feedback is received and attended to; and
• Feedback is acted upon by the student (Gibbs & Simpson, 2004-05).

While the last two items here relate to student action that is not directly under the control of academic staff, students can be encouraged to actively engage with feedback in a range of ways, such as a two-stage assignment submission process where formative feedback only is provided initially, or using a marking schema that penalises successive submissions that show the same deficiencies that have been highlighted to students in previous feedback. Another form of feedback that may be helpful to students is global feedback to the entire class that identifies common problems observed in a significant number of assignment submissions.

Activity

Does your School or Faculty have a policy on the turnaround time for marked assignments to be returned to students? In assessment activities that you are involved in, what forms of feedback are provided to students? Apart from feedback provided on items of assessment, what other forms of feedback (to students) are employed in the units that you are involved in?

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