This document discusses best practices for assessment and feedback in education. It defines feedback and outlines its purposes of helping students understand learning goals, bridge gaps in knowledge, and develop self-evaluation skills. Effective feedback is presented as a dialogical two-way process between teachers and students rather than a one-way transmission. Challenges with feedback such as delayed timing and lack of clarity are examined. The document advocates empowering students to engage actively with feedback through self-assessment, peer review, and discussion of standards.

1. Implementing best practice
guidelines to promote assessment
for learning: challenges and rewards

2. Dr David Walker &
Dr Rola Ajjawi
Synthesis of the literature on best
practice: principles of assessment and
feedback

3. Drivers

6. Activity
Jot down your definition of
feedback and then discuss with peer
(5 mins)
Be prepared to feedback to the
group

7. What is Feedback?
“Feedback should help the
student understand more about
the learning goal, and more ways
to bridge the gap between their
current status and the desired
status.”1

8. Purpose of Feedback?
Feedback should develop the students’
capacity to make evaluative judgements
about their own and others work1,8
Feedback should serve the function of
progressively enabling students to
better monitor, evaluate and regulate
their own learning, independently of the
teacher7

9. Feedback encapsulates:
1. Where am I going?
2. How am I going?
3. Where to next? (or how do I get
there?)2

10. Influence of feedback
• Affective processes of increased effort
and motivation and/or cognitive
processes of restructuring knowledge
• Learners (particular those studying at a
distance) require reassurance that they
are heading in the right direction
• Constructive feedback often results in
improved performance2-3

11. Relationship to Criteria
• Clarity of goals and standards important
to avoid a mismatch between staff &
student expectations
• Support student self-evaluation
• Improve the likelihood of reliability
• For markers criteria can be used as a
framework for providing student
feedback

12. We have a problem…
http://www.motor-trade-insider.com/index.php/2010/11/houston-we-have-a-problem/

13. Students – Common Concerns
• Feedback is too late to influence
learning
• Feedback is vague or cryptic e.g.
“more”
• Feedback provides no explanation for
action e.g. “good”
• Feedback is “one off” – no chance to try
again based on assessment sequencing

15. Tutors think they provide more detailed
feedback than students perceive
Tutors view their feedback to be more useful
compared to what students think

16. A Critque of Monologic
Feedback4-10
• Lack of learner engagement with feedback
• Lack of understanding of feedback
• Transmitted feedback creates dependency on teacher
• Not utilising self/peer feedback
• Lack of a shared context for assessment for teacher
and learner
• High teacher effort— low efficiency
• Reduced staff satisfaction as evidence of feedforward
not seen

17. Influence of feedback
• Feedback can help to develop
learner self-regulation4,5
• Professional socialisation into
profession11

18. The Feedback Recipient
• Interplay between fear, confidence and reasoning
in receptivity to feedback 12
• Tendency for ‘deflection’ when there is a
discrepancy between learners’ internal perceptions
(self-evaluation) and the external teacher’s
perceptions (feedback) 10
• Learner re-interprets the external feedback to make
it conform with their own hope, intention or
interpretation of their performance13
• Perceived credibility of feedback giver essential 14-16

19. Reconceptualising Feedback
“Feedback should be conceptualised as
a dialogical and contingent two-way
process that involves coordinated
teacher–student and peer-to-peer
interaction as well as active learner
engagement.”5

20. Teacher-focussed Strategies
• Faster turnaround of
feedback
• Improve quality of the
feedback
• Explicate timings
• Generate assessment rubrics
• Look at sequencing of
assignments
• Faculty development and
benchmarking

21. Learner-focussed Strategies
• Educate and empower students
to take an active role in feedback
• Engage students in generating
assessment criteria and
discussing standards
• Create opportunities for students
to process and use feedback
Engage students in ways to
develop evaluative judgements
(self/peer-review)
• Establish a dialogue

22. http://www.strath.ac.uk/media/other/learningteaching/student_leaflet.pdf

24. Importance of Feedback
• If students are to understand their level of
performance and how to improve they need
feedback
• Feedback does not need to be the responsibility
of teachers7
• Feedback should not be viewed as a
transmission process but a dialogue5,10
• Feedback should feedforward and assessment
strategy should allow this

25. Feedback is … a Dialogue
http://www.flickr.com/photos/khalidalbaih/5653817859

26. Contact Details
Dr David Walker
University of Dundee
Email: d.j.walker@dundee.ac.uk
Twitter: @drdjwalker
Dr Rola Ajjawi
Centre for Medical Education
University of Dundee
Email: r.ajjawi@dundee.ac.uk
Twitter: @r_ajjawi

27. References
1. Sadler, D. R. (2010) Beyond feedback: developing student capability in complex appraisal.
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35:5, 535-550.
2. Hattie, J. & TIimperley, H. (2007). The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77,
81-112.
3. Veloski, J., Boex, J. R., Grasberger, M. J., Evans, A., & Wolfson, D. B. (2006). Systematic review of
the literature on assessment, feedback and physicians’ clinical performance*: BEME Guide No. 7.
Medical Teacher, 28(2), 117-128.
4. Carless, D. (2006). Differing perceptions in the feedback process. Studies in Higher Education,
31(2), 219-233.
5. Nicol, D. (2010). From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass
higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(5), 501 - 517.
6. Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional
Science, 18(2), 119-144.
7. Nicol, D. J., & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a
model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199-
218.
8. Boud, D., & Associates. (2010). Assessment 2010: Seven propositions for assessment reform in
higher education. Sydney: Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
9. Higgins, R., Hartley, P., & Skelton, A. (2002). The Conscientious Consumer: Reconsidering the role
of assessment feedback in student learning. Studies in Higher Education, 27(1), 53-64.

28. References continued
10. Boud, D., & Molloy, E. (2012). Rethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design.
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1-15.
11. Molloy, E. K. (2009). Time to Pause: Feedback in Clinical Education. In C. Delaney & E. K. Molloy
(Eds.), Clinical Education in the Health Professions. Sydney: Elsevier.
12. Eva, K., Armson, H., Holmboe, E., Lockyer, J., Loney, E., Mann, K., et al. (2011). Factors influencing
responsiveness to feedback: on the interplay between fear, confidence, and reasoning processes.
Advances in Health Sciences Education, 1-12.
13. Carless, D., Salter, D., Yang, M., & Lam, J. (2010). Developing sustainable feedback practices.
Studies in Higher Education, 36(4), 395-407.
14. Watling, C., & Lingard, L. (2010). Toward meaningful evaluation of medical trainees: the influence
of participants’ perceptions of the process. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 1-12.
15. Watling, C., Driessen, E., van der Vleuten, C. P. M., & Lingard, L. (2012). Learning from clinical
work: the roles of learning cues and credibility judgements. Medical Education, 46(2), 192-200.
16. Watling, C., Driessen, E., van der Vleuten, C. P. M., Vanstone, M., & Lingard, L. (2012).
Understanding responses to feedback: the potential and limitations of regulatory focus theory.
Medical Education, 46(6), 593-603.
17. Nicol, D. (2012). Assessment and feedback - in the hands of the student [Online]. JISC. Available:
http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/page/50118521/Assessment%20and%20feedback%20-
%20in%20the%20hands%20of%20the%20student [Accessed 01/02/12].