TDU Talk
ISSUE 2 ▪ AUGUST 2008
FEEDBACK & ASSESSMENT
Feedback and the Course
Evaluation Process
Feedback on student
assessment tasks: commonly
asked questions
Good Feedback Principles
Principles of good formative
assessment and feedback
and questions teachers might
ask about their current
practice
References
TDU Talk
Tena koutou
katoa
Feedback &
Assessment
Welcome to our
monthly magazine.
This edition of the
magazine is focussed on
improving the feedback process
for both students and teaching
staff.
TDU Talk is just one of many
approaches that the University is
using to support academic staff
to maintain the quality of their
teaching. This is consistent with
the
University‟s
ongoing
commitment to quality teaching
and learning as restated in the
University‟s Strategic (20062009) and Academic Plans
(2008-2010).
At the highest level, the Teaching
Quality
Committee
(TQC),
chaired by the Deputy ViceChancellor is responsible for
overseeing teaching quality in
the University. The TQC is
currently working with academic
staff from across the University
to develop a Teaching and
Learning Plan for 2009-2014.
The intention of the Plan is to
support enhancement in teaching
in the following six areas;
Learning Outcomes, Teaching
Practice, Assessment, Research
and Teaching Nexus, Student
Learning Support and Facilities
and Technology. Academic staff
would be well aware that the
feedback process is linked to a
number of these six areas. This
is one reason why we have
made it the subject of our August
2008 magazine
“...when
conversation
around
assessment and
feedback is
extended and
the students are
more active
participants in
the whole
process, then
feedback is
likely to be most
useful to
students‟
learning...”
ISSUE 2: AUGUST2008
Teaching Development Unit
Office of Deputy ViceChancellor
Private Bag 3105
Hamilton 3240
New Zealand
Phone: +64 7 838 4839
Fax: +64 7 838 4573
[email protected]
www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu
It is widely recognised
that feedback is an
important part of the
learning cycle, but both
students and teachers
frequently
express
disappointment and frustration in
relation to the conduct of the
feedback process. Students may
complain that feedback on
assessment is unhelpful, while
lecturers frequently comment that
students are not interested in
feedback comments and are
only concerned with the mark. In
this magazine, we examine some
of the issues associated with
feedback on assessment and
provide some guidelines for
effective practice.
Another troubling issue is the
feedback provided to teachers
in the course evaluation process.
In this magazine we explore the
opportunities for feedback that
this process can offer to teachers
and students and also suggest
other complementary strategies
for getting feedback on the
quality of student learning.
It should be noted that in this
magazine, the term assessment is
used to refer to assessment tasks
undertaken by students, while
evaluation is used to refer to the
student evaluation of teachers
and papers.
We hope you find this magazine
informative and look forward to
hearing
your
views
and
comments.
Best Wishes,
Dorothy, Trudy and Preetha.
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
2
Feedback and the Course
Evaluation Process
“
Hello everybody, this is Trudy Harris, the
Appraisals Administrator. As you have
already read in the preamble, the subject of
this magazine is feedback. This is a good
opportunity to talk to you about formative
feedback as a form of course evaluation, and
its role in teaching development.
The University of Waikato‟s standard appraisal
questionnaire is the most common form of course
evaluation used at the University of Waikato. If
used properly, the appraisal questionnaire
should fulfil a dual purpose - the numerical
scores can be used for promotion applications,
but the questionnaire additionally provides
formative information via the open questions
that support the scores. However, because of
the institutional requirement for the numerical
data, the developmental aspects of the
appraisal questionnaire tend to be overlooked.
For traditional paper-based questionnaires, the
standard open questions tend to elicit vague
comments. However, formative information
provided by students in online appraisals tends
to be of greater length and quality.
Unfortunately, this increase in quality is offset
by the poor response rates - 30% (for online
questionnaires) as opposed to 60% for onpaper questionnaires. So how do we overcome
these obstacles and make best use of this source
of information?
There is no reason staff should not ask very
specific questions, which target specific areas of
the course design or teaching style. For
example, you may like to ask the students to
justify the scores given in the numerical part of
the evaluation. This brings us to another issue:
student engagement with the appraisal process.
For both the online and paper-based
questionnaires, it is useful to talk through the
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
importance of the comments section with the
students prior to them filling out the questionnaire.
Explain that the information will go some way to
improving the paper/teaching for the next cohort.
The changes to your paper, because of the
feedback from the students, should be included in
the paper outline as laid out in the Paper Outline
Policy. This closes the loop on the feedback that
students provide, but this also ensures a continuous
mechanism of feedback and improvement. In terms
of teaching, the information provided should form
the basis of a program of teaching development
identified through the Professional Goal Setting
interview.
But why stop at the University appraisal system?
There is no reason why other formative evaluation
methods can‟t be used during everyday teaching.
There are a number of methods that can provide
instantaneous feedback from your students such as
The Minute paper, The Muddiest Point or The One
Sentence Summary or online feedback. If you would
like to discuss the different types of formative
evaluation that are available, then contact the
Teaching Development Unit (TDU) at
[email protected] or on ext. 4389
I should also point out that the new policy on the
Review and Continuous Improvement of Papers and
Teaching will require evidence of formative
evaluation, as well as the numerical information
supplied by the Appraisal questionnaire.
Regards
Trudy
.”
3
Feedback on student assessment tasks:
commonly asked questions
The following are some of the questions that
staff members commonly ask and some
responses based on the research literature:
?
How can I ensure that students use the
feedback that I give them?
It is commonly reported that students do
not read teacher feedback comments (Duncan,
2007). The literature suggests that a part of
the problem is that teachers (and students) see
feedback in isolation from other aspects of the
teaching and learning process, and consider
feedback to be primarily a teacher-owned
endeavour (Taras, 2003). Correspondingly,
the literature suggests that the feedback
process is most effective when all the
protagonists are actively involved in the
process.
While some students may be primarily gradefocussed, there are a number of strategies
that can be used to maximise student
engagement with the process. One strategy is
to design assessment so that students can see
the direct benefits of attending to feedback
advice. This can be done by breaking
assignments into stages and providing
feedback which is essential to the successful
navigation of subsequent stages. In addition,
students can be required to document how
they used feedback to advance to the next
stage of the exercise. This strategy has the
additional benefits of encouraging students‟
meta-cognition and making them more active
participants in the feedback-learning cycle.
The workload for teachers can be offset by
the reduction of time needed to give
feedback on the final product and by
incorporating peer feedback into some of the
stages (Nicol, 2008).
Another strategy to encourage student
reflection on feedback comments is to give a
provisional grade, but invite students to talk
about their work and potentially earn a
higher grade. Some commentators suggest
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
withholding the grade altogether until students
have read the comments and indicated this in
some way (Taras, 2003).
It is also possible that students do not pay
attention to comments because they don‟t
make sense to them (Duncan, 2007), or that
they don‟t understand the purpose of the
feedback process. This is accentuated when
feedback is delivered solely by the teacher
and is often associated with students as the
marking of what is right and wrong.
Many teachers may also tend to focus on the
correctional rather than the instructional
aspects of feedback (Hattie & Timperley,
2007). Careful preparation beforehand can
help to prime the students about the nature of
feedback and its role in the learning process.
Students need to be actively involved in
learning what the criteria mean and in
understanding the goals and purposes of
feedback. Particularly helpful in this respect is
getting students to “mark” and provide
feedback on examples of previous work in
relation to the stated criteria and then have a
class discussion on this (Nicol, 2008). This
application exercise assists students to
interpret criteria more precisely than is usually
the case and helps to bridge the gap
between the way the lecturer understands the
criteria and the students‟ interpretation of
them. Furthermore, feedback needs to be
explicitly linked to the assessment criteria.
Finally, students will participate more actively
in the feedback process, when self and peer
assessment is a required component of the
assessment regime.
Overall, the evidence suggests that when
conversation around assessment and feedback
is extended and the students are more active
participants in the whole process, then
feedback is likely to be most useful to
students‟ learning. It is also probably helpful
for both teachers and students to start using
the phrase “feed-forward” as this encourages
both teachers and students to focus on future
learning.
4
?
At what stage in the learning cycle
will feedback be more effective?
Generally, feedback has to be given as soon
as possible after the completion of the
learning task. Students also need to see that
feed-forward comments can be incorporated
into subsequent performance and influence the
quality of their learning in positive ways. At
the same time, in some instances, temporarily
withholding feedback is needed to allow the
students to internalise and process the
demands of the task (Hattie & Timperley,
2007).
?
Is there a particular style and
language that I should be using
when giving feedback?
This is a very important aspect of feedback
and relates to the way in which students may
or not use feedback. Research suggests that
comments on students‟ tasks are frequently
written in language that makes sense to the
lecturer but which is not accessible to the
students. Inevitably, if this is the case,
feedback will remain a one way transmission
from the lecturer which will have little to do
with the students‟ subsequent behaviours. For
example, in the study by Duncan (2007), he
refers to the injunction of a lecturer to a
student to “use a more academic style”, a
comment which lecturers obviously understood,
but which students in the study reported as
difficult to interpret (p.273). Other common
phrases that the students in this study found
difficult to interpret and act on included:
▪ Deepen analysis of key issues
▪ Sharpen critique
▪ Identify and develop implications
▪ Link theory and practice
Some of these problems could be managed
by pre-assessment practice on and discussion
of past exemplars and associated criteria.
Such pre-assessment coaching and
preparation opens up the dialogue around
assessment, and creates the opportunity for
developing a shared understanding of
feedback terminology. Additionally, such a
conversational process means that there is a
greater sharing of power between the
assessors and assessed and a climate that is
more conducive to students being receptive to
feedback. Furthermore, Nicol (2008) suggests
that there could also be some class time set
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
aside for decoding and discussion of
feedback comments after assignments have
been returned. One strategy that Nicol
(2008) suggests here is to put students into
small groups in tutorials and invite them to
share and discuss feedback comments. This
would have the additional advantage of
heightening students‟ understanding of course
learning goals.
Studies of the impact of feedback on student
learning achievement indicate that feedback
has the potential to have a significant effect
on student learning achievement (Hattie &
Timperley, 2007). However, this potential is
strongly related to the quality of the
feedback and, unsurprisingly, Hattie and
Timperley (2007) note that the most
improvement in student learning takes place
when students got “information feedback
about a task and how to do it more
effectively” and is clearly related to the
learning goals (p.84). By contrast, the impact
of feedback on learning achievement is
minimised when feedback focussed on “praise,
rewards and punishment” (Hattie &
Timperley, 2007, p.84). Hattie and Timperley
(2007) also note that feedback is more
effective when it addresses achievable goals
and when it does not carry “high threats to
self-esteem” (p.86).
Nicol (2008), citing Lunsford
(1997), also suggests that
feedback can be helpful to
students when it is framed in
terms of the impact of the
writing on the reader. This could
also enhance self-regulation
skills because it enables students
to gradually move away from
monologue to conceptualise a
reader and direct their writing
to her or him. As people who
work with student writing can
attest, enabling students to
make their writing readercentred can transform the
quality of their written
communication.
5
?
What else can I do to maximise
student learning in the feedback
process?
Make sure that feedback is related to the
learning goals
Hattie and Timperley (2007) argue that
the “main purpose of feedback is to reduce
the gap between current understandings
and performance and a goal” (p.86). In
this model, feedback must therefore be
addressed to three questions:
▪ Where am I going? (What are the goals?)
▪ How am I going? (What progress is being
made towards the goal?)
▪ Where to next? (What activities need to be
undertaken to make better progress?)
(Hattie & Timperley, 2007, p.86)
Hattie and Timperley‟s model shows how
comments may be related to these
questions on four different levels: task,
process, self-regulation and self. Feedback on
the task in relation to all three questions
usually works best when it is accompanied by
explanation of appropriate processes, and
learning can be deepened if the feedback
additionally prompts some degree of selfreflection and management. That is, at its
best, feedback will demonstrate appropriate
ways of enhancing the performance on the
task, and offer strategies that invite more
learner responsibility to improve. By contrast,
feedback „about the self as a person‟ often
has no impact on the learning, because it is
not linked to the goals of the task for future
learning management or behaviours.
According to Hattie and Timperley (2007) ,
“praise addressed to students is unlikely to be
effective because it provides little information
that provides answers to any of the three
questions and too often deflects attention
from the task” (p.96). It should be noted that
this kind of praise should be distinguished
from praise directed to the performance of
the task which can benefit learning.
“Students
need to be
actively
involved in
learning what
the criteria
mean and in
understanding
the goals and
purposes of
feedback…”
(Nicol, 2008).
Model of Feedback to Enhance Learning
Purpose
To reduce discrepancies between current understandings/performance and a desired goal
The discrepancy can be reduced by:
Students:
Increased effort of employment of more effective strategies OR
Abandoning, blurring, or lowering the goals
Teachers
Providing appropriate challenging and specific goals
Assisting students to reach them through effective e-learning strategies and feedback
Effective feedback answers three questions
Where am I going? (the goals)
How am I going?
Where to next
Feed up
Feed back
Feed Forward
Each feedback question works at four levels:
Task Level
Process Level
Self-regulation level
Self Level
How well tasks are
understood/performed
The main process needed
to understand/perform
tasks
Self-monitoring, directing
and regulating of actions
Personal evaluations and
affect (usually positive)
about the learner
Figure 1: A model of feedback to enhance learning
Hattie, J. and Timperley, H. (2007). The Power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77-87.
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
6
The responses to these questions become far
more meaningful when teachers and students
are all engaged in the feedback process and
when it is managed so as to promote learner
self evaluation and regulation (very
important aspects of any effective learning
process). In line with the notion that we need
to broaden the feedback process and that
learner self-regulation is an important goal
of the feedback process, self and peer
assessment strategies can be incorporated
into the process. One simple approach is to
invite students to submit a self-assessment
sheet based on the task criteria and the
marker will give feedback on the selfassessment rather than the task itself.
Dialogue around learning can also be
enhanced and the power differential
between assessor and students lessened when
peer feedback is incorporated into the
assessment process (Nicol, 2008). If the
feedback is formative, getting a range of
feedback can enhance a student‟s reflections
on a task and encourage them o think more
deeply about the quality of their work (Nicol,
2008). Another positive of the peer feedback
process is that students get to see other
students‟ work which can also deepen
understanding of the learning goals (Nicol,
2008).
?
How much feedback should I be
giving on any assessment task?
There is no simple answer to this question,
although it is widely agreed that it is not
necessarily beneficial simply to increase the
amount of feedback (Crisp, 2007). One
strategy is to ask the students to select a
different area of their work (in relation to
the criteria) on which they seek quality
feedback for each assignment (Nicol,
2008). This invites the student to take more
ownership of the assessment and feedback
process and should motivate them to attend
to comments. More important than the
amount of feedback given are the other
requisites for effective formative feedback,
that is that they should be on task, linked to
learning goals and provide guidelines for
subsequent performance. The amount of
feedback that is helpful will also relate to
how well the task has been presented, the
extent to which criteria have been worked
through in dialogue with students, the nature
of the linkage between the task and other
assessments, the use of other sources of
feedback, and the climate around feedback
that has been established in the classroom.
As previously noted, conversation on the
purposes of feedback is also central to its
usefulness.
One strategy that can help teachers limit the
amount of feedback that they need to give
to individual students, is to provide “the
whole databank of comments that their
teacher or teachers provided on a
particular assignment to students” (Nicol,
2008, p.10). This can give the students a
richer context for understanding of their
own performance.
?
What sort of feedback should I be
giving to excellent work?
Many markers provide minimal feedback on
high quality work. While it may be true that
the work reaches the expected performance
level, good work can also benefit from
instructional feedback. Again, the idea of
feedback as enlarging conversation around
the work is helpful and student‟s learning
can always be extended. Questions that
invite the student to explore or extend a
point, or references that point them to
further reading are ideal in this respect.
Dialogue can also be initiated by revealing
one‟s own thinking on points that students
have raised.
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
7
Good Feedback Principles
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
►
Promote dialogue and conversation
around the goals of the assessment
task
Emphasise the instructional aspects of
feedback and not only the
correctional dimensions.
Remember to provide feed forwardindicate what students need to think
about in order to bring their task
performance closer to the goals
Specify the goals of the assessment
task and use feedback to link student
performance to the specified
assessment goals
Engage the students in practical
exercises and dialogue to help them
to understand the task criteria
Engage the students in conversation
around the purposes of feedback
and feed forward
Design feedback comments that invite
self-evaluation and future selflearning management
Enlarge the range of participants in
the feedback conversationincorporate self and peer feedback
Do you have any further questions or
views
on2008feedback?
Do get in touch
AUGUST
▪ TDU TALK
with us
8
Good assessment and
feedback
practice should:
1. Help clarify what good performance is
(goals, criteria, standards).
To what extent do students in your course have
opportunities to engage actively with goals,
criteria and standards, before, during and after an
assessment task?
2. Encourage ‘time and effort’ on challenging
learning tasks.
To what extent do your assessment tasks encourage
regular study in and out of class and deep rather
than surface learning?
3. Deliver high quality feedback information
that helps learners self-correct.
What kind of teacher feedback do you provide—in
what ways does it help students self-assess and selfcorrect?
4. Provide opportunities to act on feedback (to
close any gap between current and desired
performance).
To what extent is feedback attended to and acted
upon by students in your course, and if so, in what
ways?
5. Ensure that summative assessment has a
positive impact on learning.
To what extent are your summative and formative
assessments aligned to and supportive of the
development of valued qualities, skills and
understanding?
6. Encourage interaction and dialogue around
learning (peer and teacher-student).
What opportunities are there for feedback
dialogues (peer and/or tutor-student) around
assessment tasks in your course?
8. Give
choice in the
topic, method,
criteria, weighting or
timing of assessments.
To what extent do students have choice
in the topics, methods, criteria, weighting and/or
timing of learning and assessment tasks in your
course.
9. Involve students in decision-making about
assessment policy and practice.
To what extent are students in your course kept
informed or engaged in consultations regarding
assessment policy decisions?
10. Support the development of learning groups
and communities.
To what extend do your assessment and feedback
processes help encourage social bonding and
development of learning communities?
11. Encourage positive motivational beliefs and
self-esteem
To what extent do your assessment and feedback
processes enhance your students’ motivation to learn
and be successful?
12. Provide information to teachers that can be
used to help shape their teaching.
To what extent do your assessment and feedback
processes inform and shape your teaching?
7. Facilitate the development of self-assessment
and reflection in learning.
To what extent are there formal opportunities for
reflection, self-assessment or peer assessment in
your course?
Table 1: Principles of good formative assessment and feedback and questions teachers might ask about their current
practice.
Taken from: Nicol, D. & Draper, S. (2008). Redesigning written feedback to students when class sizes are large. Paper
presented at the Improving University Teachers Conference, 29 July—1 August, Glasgow.
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
9
Ako Aotearoa Good Practice Publication Grants
NOW SEEKING APPLICATIONS
Thirty-five grants of up to $5000 are available to enable
departments, centres, groups or individuals, to obtain time and
resources from their organisation to celebrate and share their
proven good practice of teaching and/or supporting learners.
Ako Aotearoa Good Practice Publication Grants:
- Are open to any individual or group involved in teaching and/
or supporting learning in the tertiary education sector
- Focus on good practice
Applications are due at the Ako Aotearoa National Office by
Monday 5pm, 29 September 2008.
Ako Aotearoa
National Office
c/ Massey University
Wellington Campus
Private Bag 756
Wellington
For further information contact your regional hub or visit
www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz
T 64 4 801 0808
F 64 4 801 2682
www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz
Ako Aotearoa National Project Fund
NOW SEEKING APPLICATIONS
The National Project Fund supports strategic initiatives to
improve tertiary teaching and learning.
The fund is tertiary specific, focuses on learner outcomes and
the benefits of tertiary education, and will give additional
weight to projects that are collaborative and build capacity.
There are four funding streams for projects:
- Research and Implementation Projects (up to $150k per
project)
- Maori Initiative Projects (up to $150k per project)
- Doctoral Scholarships ($25k per annum plus fees per
scholarship)
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For further information visit www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
Ako Aotearoa
National Office
c/ Massey University
Wellington Campus
Private Bag 756
Wellington
T 64 4 801 0808
F 64 4 801 2682
www.akoaotearoa.ac.nz
10
TDU & WCEL present Professor Geoffrey Crisp, BSc (Hons), PhD on:
A 60-90 minute presentation covering:
* Design principles for interactive assessments
* Examples of interactive e-assessments - taking things
beyond simple multiple choice to make assessments meaningful
and relevant to your subject
* Examples from a range of disciplines including physical
sciences, health sciences, humanities and business.
Professor Geoffrey Crisp,
BSc (Hons), PhD, is
Director, Centre of
Learning and
Professional
Development, and
Director, Online
Education, The
University of Adelaide.
For details visit: http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/workshops/
crisp.html
His current research
activity includes online
assessment, higher
education policy and
organisational and staff
development.
Geoff is a HERDSA
Fellow (2006) and
Carrick Associate Fellow
(2006-2007). His recent
publications include the
book The e-Assessment
Handbook published in
London by Continuum
(Crisp, 2007).
Supported by HERDSA
Register by completing an application form and returning
to Teaching Development Unit, or register your interest
by emailing [email protected]
REGISTRATIONS CLOSE: 12 September, Friday
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
11
References
Crisp, B. (2007). Is it worth the effort? How feedback influences students‟ subsequent
submission of assessable work. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 32(5),
571-581.
Duncan, N. (2007). „Feed-forward‟: improving students‟ use of tutor comments, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education. 32 (3), 271-283.
Hattie, J. and Timperley.H. (2007). The Power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77, 81-112.
Nicol, D. & Draper, S. (2008). Redesigning written feedback to students when class sizes are large. Paper
presented at the Improving University Teachers Conference, 28 July—1 August, Glasgow.
Taras, M. (2003). To feedback or not to feedback in student self-assessment. Assessment
and Evaluation in Higher Education, 28 (5), 549-565.
Produced by:
Teaching Development Unit
Office of Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Private Bag 3105 Hamilton 3240 New Zealand
Phone: +64 7 838 4839
Fax: +64 7 838 4573
[email protected]
www.waikato.ac.nz/tdu
AUGUST 2008 ▪ TDU TALK
12