Assessment feedback
This primer explains the rationale for assessment feedback needing to be TAFFSDBoEC – Timely Actionable Forward-Facing Supportive Developmental Based on Evidencing Competence. It is aimed at anyone involved in the design and use of assessment at university.
How important is assessment to students?
There is a strong, well established, argument that assessment is the most important factor in learning. Entwistle, for example, maintains that it is “the single, strongest influence on learning” (Entwistle 2000 p.111-112), whilst Boud et al (2010, p.1) argue that “Assessment is a central feature of teaching and the curriculum. It powerfully frames how students learn and what students achieve. It is one of the most significant influences on students’ experience of higher education and all that they gain from it”. Assessment has been identified in many studies as playing a central role, shaping and dominating learning processes in higher education, with the link between assessment and learning widely acknowledged as being significant (see for example: Entwistle and Ramsden 1983, Gibbs 1992, 1994, Ramsden 1992, Brown and Knight 1994, Brown et al. 1997, Ramsden 2003, Race 2005, Sainsbury and Walker 2008, Brown 2015).
There is a strong and widely supported argument that “assessment defines what learners regard as important, how they spend their time and how they come to see themselves as graduates” (Brown 2001 p.4). As Gibbs argues, “assessment frames learning…and orients all aspects of learning behaviour” (Gibbs 2006 p.24). He suggests it frequently has more impact on learning than teaching. Similarly, Ramsden maintains that “from our students’ point of view, assessment always defines the actual curriculum” (Ramsden 1992 p.187). These quotes demonstrate assessment is one of the most important aspects of university life for students. For many it may be the most important
Feedback and the way you teach
It’s important to recognise that there are multiple different definitions of feedback.
Our understanding or conceptualization of the role and purpose of assessment feedback will influence how, when, and why we provide learners with feedback in our teaching. Allied to that is the pedagogic process or teaching approach you use. For example, are you working primarily within an Assessment of Learning [AoL] pedagogic approach; an Assessment for Learning pedagogic approach [AfL]; or an Assessment as learning [AaL] pedagogic approach?
An Assessment of Learning [AoL] pedagogy will focus on providing summative feedback at the end of a course or module or programme of study; giving students information about what they have done and how well or badly they have achieved. This is the traditional model of assessment in higher education, typified by end of module examinations and essays. Feedback within AoL pedagogy focuses on being about what has already been ‘done’ or evidenced by the student. Feedback may be seen more as ‘corrective’ – correcting students’ errors and misinterpretations.
An Assessment for Learning [AfL] pedagogy focuses more on providing students with regular, ongoing developmental formative feedback, both informal and formal throughout a course, module or programme of study. The specifics of AFL pedagogy are slightly contested, with an argument that the term can be applied to almost any kind of teaching that involves providing formative developmental feedback. Within an AfL pedagogy, formative assessment is that which is specifically intended to generate feedback on performance in order to improve learning.
One perspective is that AfL is just as much about the feedback that students provide to the tutor/lecturer/teacher during a taught session and how they modify that teaching to take account of that, for example, focusing on an area the students may be struggling with, or changing the pace of a session depending on students’ existing knowledge. Within an AfL pedagogy ‘timely’ feedback would refer to immediate in-class formative development feedback about competency, knowledge, skills, etc. that a student can use before they submit their work for summative grading, rather than waiting until after a student has submitted summative work and then providing formative feedback that can only be used for a subsequent piece of assessed work. Feedback should be Timely.
Typically, most university systems interpret timely feedback, as does the NSS, only with the formal, usually written, feedback received at the end of a module: the summative feedback provided on learning. For example, the NSS currently (2024) asks students “How often have you received assessment feedback on time?”. Within a wholly AfL pedagogy this would be a very difficult question to answer as there would not be set times when feedback would be provided – it would be ongoing throughout taught sessions and may not be provided in writing; yet it would still be useable, or actionable, by the student.
Increasingly over the last twenty years or so higher education has been moving more towards an AfL model, whilst retaining many, if not all, of the elements of AoL. Feedback today focuses, or should focus, on being more developmental than corrective, yet typically higher education feedback processes combine summative feedback about what has already been done by the student, with formative feedback which aims to be developmental. Universities use both AoL and AfL. There is a fairly strong argument that summative feedback on learning and formative feedback for learning should be ‘detangled’ – separated out; yet to do so requires institutional change.
An Assessment as learning [AaL] pedagogy will provide regular ongoing developmental feedback, yet also use the assessment as a way of developing new knowledge, understanding or skills amongst the students, and provide feedback on their engagement with and evidence of this. AaL pedagogy is a more recent development in higher education. It focuses on assessment process that develops new knowledge, understandings and skills, rather than just testing what students already know. A very simple example could be a group presentation where the students work together to solve a problem, then present their solution. The assessment process facilitates the development of their information finding, problem-solving and presentation skills and the discipline-specific knowledge related to the content.
What is the purpose of feedback?
One view of feedback is that its function is to provide students with information about how to ‘close the gap’ between where they are at a particular point in time in their learning with where they need to be. Within a Competence-Based framework the implication of this is that we should provide students with clear developmental feedback against each of the competences they need to demonstrate at the end of their programme of study, or at the end of a stage of a programme. Feedback should be aligned with the programme competences so that they may ‘close the gap’ between where they are now and where they need to be. Feedback should be Forward Facing.
It should, however, be borne in mind that focusing only on feedback as something that is designed to ‘close a gap’, may for some learners, curtail or inhibit future learning. They may believe that once they have closed the gap, no further learning is required or needed. So, we need to be careful not to inhibit future learning.
Do lecturers actually provide ‘feedback’?
It has been argued that lecturers do not actually provide feedback to students. What we provide them with is information. This information only becomes feedback when students actively use it and improve their future learning. If students do not use the information that we provide them with, then it is not feedback, just ‘dangling data’. The implication of this is that we should focus not just on providing students with information, but on providing them with information that they can use meaningfully to improve their future learning and development. This has implications for the amount, the type or format, and the clarity of information we provide. The information needs to be constructively aligned to the competences we are assessing our students against. Feedback is identified as being information about how the student’s present state (of learning and performance) relates to the competences [and where applicable PSRB standards.] that we are assessing them against. Feedback needs to be Supportive and Developmental.
Things to consider – what could your programme team do?
Some things could be:
- Build a feedback contract for staff that outlines key principles of effective feedback for your discipline.
- Agree amongst staff the amount of feedback to provide and what level of detail it should go into.
- Explain to students that we only provide information, that their action makes it feedback.
- Produce checklist/reminders that staff can use to see if their feedback is meeting the principles we’ve outlined here. At its simplest this could use the TAFFSDBoEC acronym. Is the feedback provided: Timely Actionable Forward-Facing Supportive Developmental, and Based on Evidencing Competence?
- Consider how individual markers relate their feedback to what’s already been provided by other staff [constructively aligned feedback at programme-level], so that individual module feedback links with other modules.
- Ensure that feedback clearly relates to your marking criteria, against the competences, so that students can see what they need to do close the gap for their next assignment.
- Ask students when they would like to receive feedback and what would be the ‘best’ format to receive it in.
References and brief notes about them
Black, P. and D. Wiliam (1998). “Assessment and Classroom Learning.” Assessment in Education; Principles, Policy and Practice 5(1): 7-74.
Black and Wiliam, influential proponents of Assessment for Learning defined formative assessment as “all those activities undertaken by teachers, and/or by their students, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged” (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.8)
Brown, G., J. Bull and M. Pendlebury (1997). Assessing Student Learning in Higher Education. London, Routledge.
Brown, S. and P. Knight (1994). Assessing Learners in Higher Education. London, Kogan Page.
Brown, S. (2015). Learning, teaching and assessment in higher education: global perspectives. London, Palgrave-MacMillan.
Boud, D. and Associates (2010). Assessment 2020: Seven propositions for assessment reform in higher education. Australia, Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
Entwistle, N. J. and P. Ramsden (1983). Understanding Student Learning. London, Croon Helm.
Entwistle, N. (2000). “Recent research on student learning.” The Management of Independent Learning. J. Tait and P. Knight. London, Kogan Page: 97-112
Gibbs, G. (1992). Assessing More Students. Oxford, Oxford Centre for Staff Development.
Gibbs, G. (1992). Improving the Quality of Student Learning; based on the Improving Student Learning Project funded by the Council for National Academic Awards. Bristol, Technical and Educational Services Ltd.
Holmes, A.G.D. (2023). “‘I was really upset and it put me off’: The emotional impact of assessment feedback on first-year undergraduate students”. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice 11:2 62-74.
Discusses how students’ engagement or lack of engagement with feedback may be affected by the grade they expected for their work and how their negative emotions can lead to demotivation and potential to drop out of higher education. It implies that educators being more aware of the potential negative impact of their feedback, and need to help students develop their feedback literacy.
Jackel, B., Pearce, J., Radloff, A. and D. Edwards. (2017) Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education: A review of literature for the Higher Education Academy. Available at https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/assessment-and-feedback-higher-education-1 This 66-page report provides a fairly comprehensive review of literature about the principles and practices of assessment and feedback in universities.
Jackson, M. and L. Marks “Improving the effectiveness of feedback by use of assessed reflections and withholding of grades”. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 41(4): 532-54
Argues that “It is not enough to simply provide good feedback – we must also ensure that students recognize the importance of using feedback and learn to become effective practitioners of the requisite skills in using feedback to improve their work” (Jackson and Marks 2016 p.545).
Nicol, D.J. l and 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, DOI: 10.1080/03075070600572090
Explains what feedback is, how education has shifted more to formative assessment, and establishes seven principles for effective feedback to facilitate students’ self-regulation
Office for Students – List of NSS questions https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/c2ddb4c1-34cf-4df4-8c26-b6469412768f/nss-2023-questionnaire.pdf These questions are useful to consider when designing your module/programme.
Jisc Principles of good assessment and feedback https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/principles-of-good-assessment-and-feedback
Popham, W. J. (2001). “Teaching to the Test?” Helping All Students Achieve 58(6): 16-20.
Popham suggests that students entering higher education from school or college are likely to have received much more feedback in the form of coaching and correction, or ‘teaching to the test’. The implication being that that their initial expectations of feedback in higher education are likely to be misaligned with what we provide and we need to manage their expectations
Price, M., K. Handley and J. Millar (2011).”Feedback: Focusing attention on engagement.” Studies in Higher Education 36(8): 879-896.
Argues that students may not always recognize that information/ feedback provided about one piece of work should be used to inform future work. The implication being that we may need to explain the value of doing this to them.
Race, P. (2005). Making Learning Happen: A guide for post compulsory education. London, Sage Publications Ltd.
Ramaprasad, A. (1983). “On the definition of feedback.” Behavioural Science, 28(1): 4-13.
Although from the field of management/behavioural science Ramprasad’s paper discusses the lack of a commonly accepted definition of the concept of feedback and proposes a general definition. Effectively he defines feedback as information about a [learning] gap which is used to alter or ‘close’ the gap in some way.
Ramsden, P. (1992). Learning to Teach in Higher Education. Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge.
Sadler, R. (1989). “Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems.” Instructional Science 18(1): 119-144.
This paper includes a clear definition of what summative assessment is and makes a case that assessment involves a judgement by the academic. Sadler also argues that “information about the gap between the actual…is considered as feedback only when it is used to alter the gap” (Sadler 1989 p.121). He argues that feedback not used to alter the gap is merely “dangling data” (ibid. p.121). This suggests that lecturers provide information, rather than feedback and that feedback should not be labelled as such unless there is an impact on the learner’s future performance through them having taken action.
Sainsbury, E. J. and R. A. Walker (2008). “Assessment as a vehicle for learning: Extending collaboration into testing.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 33(2): 103-117.
Winstone, N.E. & David, D. (2022) The need to disentangle assessment and feedback in higher education, Studies in Higher Education, 47:3, 656-667, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2020.1779687
Re-iterates and clearly makes a strong case for the long-standing argument that summative assessment of learning should be provided separately to formative developmental assessment for learning