What makes for effective feedback: staff and student perspectives

By Phillip Dawson, Michael Henderson, Paige Mahoney, Michael Phillips, Tracii Ryan, David Boud, Elizabeth Molloy. 2019

419 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Since the early 2010s the literature has shifted to view feedback as a process that students do where they make sense of information about work they have done, and use it to improve the quality of their subsequent work. In this view, effective feedback needs to demonstrate effects. However, it is unclear if educators and students share this understanding of feedback. This paper reports a qualitative investigation of what educators and students think the purpose of feedback is, and what they think makes feedback effective. We administered a survey on feedback that was completed by 406 staff and 4514 students from two Australian universities. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted on data from a sample of 323 staff with assessment responsibilities and 400 students. Staff and students largely thought the purpose of feedback was improvement. With respect to what makes feedback effective, staff mostly discussed feedback design matters like timing, modalities and connected tasks. In contrast, students mostly wrote that high-quality feedback comments make feedback effective – especially comments that are usable, detailed, considerate of affect and personalised to the student’s own work. This study may assist researchers, educators and academic developers in refocusing their efforts in improving feedback.

Subfields: Education, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/001aab4865397098adeabf13196ab476d73dbc00

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In Education

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

Citations in the corpus

Quality of Feedback in Higher Education: A Review of Literature (2020, background): “Dawson and colleagues [36] are one example from the literature that examined perceptions of the functions of feedback.”
Using formative assessment to influence self- and co-regulated learning: the role of evaluative judgement (2018, background): “In more recent studies (e.g. Dawson et al., 2018) there are signs that feedback inputs by teachers in higher education are increasingly focused on strategies for improvement, i.e. planning.”
Artificial Intelligence for Assessment and Feedback to Enhance Student Success in Higher Education (2022, methodology): “After the assessment process, feedback is provided to the higher education stakeholders to provide insights into students’ performance as well as their strengths and fragilities [67, 68].”
The effectiveness of formative assessment: student views and staff reflections (2020, background): “Many studies make it difficult to assess effectiveness of such assessments as they include both a formative and summative element (Dawson et al. 2019).”