I think one of the most critical things about student feedback is a good mutual understanding between students and staff as to what the purpose of feedback is. Without clarity there is always the danger of mismatched expectations from feedback that can lead to significant misunderstandings in assessment tasks.

Feedback should be positive and for poorly performing students it should be aimed at gently encouraging new thinking, alternate viewpoints etc. A little humility and self deprecating humour from an assessor also goes a long way towards building a trusting relationship with students that will enhance further learning opportunities.

Yes, we need to change the way we construct our feedback.

Praising the students in the positive aspects of their work is as important as pointing out what is incorrect, if not more important.

And when focusing on what´s not good enough or incorrect, it should be done in an encouraging way, telling the student the best way to do what needs to be done. Just telling them what´s wrong and not leadint the way doesn´t help much.

Thanks Thais and Chris. I agree, Thais, that students need to know *why* we think their work is worthwhile. I also agree, Chris, that feedback ultimately needs to morph into a dialogue based on mutual trust and respect. There's plenty of pedagogical research to support this notion of dialogue but, in the large and often impersonal context of very large classes in universities or the on-line context, it can be challenging to make written feedback seem personal - let alone heart-felt.

I think one of the most critical things about student feedback is a good mutual understanding between students and staff as to what the purpose of feedback is. Without clarity there is always the danger of mismatched expectations from feedback that can lead to significant misunderstandings in assessment tasks.

Feedback should be positive and for poorly performing students it should be aimed at gently encouraging new thinking, alternate viewpoints etc. A little humility and self deprecating humour from an assessor also goes a long way towards building a trusting relationship with students that will enhance further learning opportunities.

I appreciate and second Andrew's point that students need to better understand the purpose of feedback and especially the purpose of formative feedback. If they understand that the feedback is for improvement (rather than censure), they may be more likely to respond positively.

Let me also put in a plug for feedback as a mechanism for constructive alignment. Students can benefit from understanding how a particular task leads to the successful attainment of a particular set of learning outcomes. Feedback can also be connected to these outcomes - in fact it can help deepen understanding of the outcome itself.

Many thanks Andrew and Matt. Recent research agrees with you, Andrew, that a primary goal of effective feedback should be to develop mutual and respectful understandings via high quality dialogue. And I agree with both of you that feedback needs to be constructive if it is going to be effective in terms of supplying critique students are willing to accept and assimilate. From both research and my teaching experience, I've found this can be a challenge! In addition, I heartily agree with you, Matt, that feedback should constructively align with curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. In this way a 'virtuous' and highly effective feedback loop is created.

There are two types of feedback/assessment--formative and summative. Formative feedback is provided while a task in ongoing. In a writing class, for example, the teacher offers it when a work is in progress, in the draft stage. Because the aim of the feedback is to give students suggestions on how to improve the work in progress, it generally is helpful and constructive, not critical. The frequent provision of formative assessments does improve the work, and it ameliorates any criticisms that may be necessary during summative assessment, criticisms that tend to justify the grade or score.

Hi James,

I think we are on the same page here, and I'd like to take the conversation a little deeper. Do students know what to do with formative feedback? Do they know how to map the concepts presented in feedback onto the task of re-writing/re-editing/re-designing an existing draft or prototype?

From direct observation and as a side note to some research I've done, I'd say the answer is quite variable. High performing students often have these skills. But other students have difficulty - unless they get explicit training in the formative feedback process.

Matt

Matt,

Initially, they do not, as you observed. Over time, however, with repeated receipt of formative feedback, they begin to understand and apply the information they receive, provided, of course, that they are motivated to do so. Most of my junior-level advanced writing students finish the course writing as well as beginning graduate students.

There is the issue of feed"back" vs feed"forward" as well. We, myself and a few colleagues, have written a paper on this recently that might provide some inspiration and/or ideas. See the article

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235902116_What_is_feedback_Connecting_Student_Perceptions_to_Assessment_Practices?ev=prf_pub

Best regards

Arnold.

Conference Paper What is Feedback? Connecting Student Perceptions to Assessme...

Hi Arnold,

I enjoyed your presentation at AAEE 2012. Thanks for the link.

James, your students are lucky to have you. I've done a lot of my research in the STEM disciplines, some of which in institutions that are wedded to the "writing across the curriculum" model. In many of these cases, the instructors are expected to teach writing without any explicit training in composition or rhetoric - or in scaffolding assessment.

Hats off to all instructors that have these skills.

Matt,

I have been an advocate of WAC for many years. As is too often the case with a pedagogical approach, WAC is seldom implemented properly. The model you described is "writing intensive," in which content-area faculty are asked to assume more responsibility for helping students learn the discipline-specific conventions and ways of knowing that characterize situated writing. The WI model does not work if the participating faculty do not receive training in writing pedagogy and writing assessment. Nevertheless, it is a widely used model because it is inexpensive. Few content-area faculty are willing to participate in the necessary training unless they receive--quite rightly--compensation, and few administrators are willing to pay faculty for the extra work of the training.

Even so, it is far easier to train STEM faculty to teach writing effectively than it is to train faculty trained in literature (i.e., essentially all writing teachers) so that they understand the conventions, ways of knowing, and standards of proof in the various content-areas.

I always try to aim to be positive in my feedback, even when there's a lot wrong with a paper. To suggest alternative approaches, other areas for consideration, etc while also acknowledging the work the student has put into the paper, can be useful. If it's obvious that someone hasn't expended any effort, or has copied work though, it's perfectly legitimate to be a bit more forthright. This is, after all, how we learn, I suppose.

I agree with professor Simpson when he took an interactive view toward feedback and I also appreciate professor Williams' emphasis on the importance of formative assessment. In order to add to the topic under discussion, I should say that there are times that feedback can become even harmful, let alone hurtful or unkind. For example, if teachers provide learners with written corrective feedback which is solely based on teachers' expectations of a good essay, the WCF given fails to account for the complexity of the learners' interlanguage system.( Interlanguage is a dynamic, nonlinear, and adaptive system the characteristics of which differ greatly from one learner to the next). Therefore, since the WCF provided is not consonant with learners' real needs, it may even become harmful by causing learners to avoid structures or vocabulary items they are not sure of. As a result, the complexity of their writing will suffer and that's when WCF can become harmful. In a nutshell, The focus of feedback should be on students' learning not teachers' expectations.

I often find myself focusing on the negative - even in a good paper. Subconsciously I want to help the student improve and forget that I also need to let them know what they have done right. I often find myself going back and editing my comments to add the positive feedback later.

Our learning system allows us to give verbal feedback to students and I find this quite effective. You can say "Hi Jane, I read your assignment with interest. I was impressed with your ability to .......................... Things that you should focus on next time are .................... " You can also explain concepts very quickly this way. So if you tell a student that they need to be more critical in their analysis, you can quickly give them more information on what that means or give them examples. This is a much more friendly way of doing things and provides the students with more information without taking up a lot of time.

Like Thomas, I firmly believe that verbal feedback is a better choice. Its advantage over WCF is that it is more interactive and in this way teachers have the opportunity to adjust their feedback to learners' real needs. There are times that students are far below the level of feedback provided and teachers have to introduce some complementary material if necessary. Teachers should help learners (as the name suggests) learn and stop teaching them all the time!

I find both are needed. As Theda said, talking can be very specific and concept oriented. When giving advice on literacy issues however I find written advice more useful - A type of editing as teachIng. A colleague also references the criteria to give a different perspective. He ticks where on the standards descriptors the students work is and circles the descriptor that the student needs to target, This way the student is steered towards generic descriptors of what fhey heed to do. A combination of all 3 responses at different times is a good strategy.

One other thing I wanted to mention was that students NEED critical feedback. Only saying positive things is next to useless. For them to hear critique in the right frame of mind requires that you have an appropriate professional relationship. One where the student trusts you to give the most suitable advice you can, to help to get the best outcome they can. That takes time and is also dependant on the student's history.

By questioning the efficacy of WCF given the time and effort it requires, I did not mean that it is useless all the time and in all aspects. I mainly focused on WCF adressing grammatical structures and lexical items, when I emphasized the importance of an interactive approach toward feedback provision. When it comes to the format of an acceptable essay for example or spelling errors or even some "treatable errors" (like the use of referential indefinite ‘a’ and referential definite ‘the’ as studied in articles by Bitchener and Knoch) WCF won't harm.

I will borrow some ideas from Peter Drucker and Jane Mc Gonigal to answer this question.

Peter Drucker said that school was organized in the wrong way. That instead of focusing on what people DO NOTdo right, it should focus on what they DO RIGHT in order to build confidence to attempt new challenges.

On the other hand, Jane McGonigal says in her book "Reality is broken" that something must be wrong or broken with reality, since so many people spend lots of hours playing games (that set them apart from reality while they play). So she suggests that we take some elements that make games so fun and use them in other contexts (that is, gamification) in order to make those activities more fun and fulfilling.

I am not suggesting that we all introduce gamification in student´s evaluations, but there are things that can be used without the need to go into a full gamification effort.

What do games provide (besides fun) that can be usable in this context? Clear goals and rules, quick feedback and recognition of achievement, progression from easy to more demanding tasks, flow and "strokes" among other things.

"Strokes" are like hand strokes on students´backs; they are a way of saying "keep going", "you are on the right track", etc. Strokes are a way to treat the evaluated party like people- because they do not lose their human quality just because they are being evaluated.

Ok. You will tell me that you can not tell a student that he or she is doing good work if this is not a case. Of course not, especially at the university or college level where they should be on their way to mastery. The problem is that the evaluation effort should start at the onset of a subject. They should know what competences or capacities they are supposed to develop when they do the required coursework, WHY IY IS MEANINGFUL for them and how they are going to know that they have been successful.

People need to undertake meaningful tasks. If we can not make our coursework meaningful, we are in trouble. We need to be flexible. Meaningful tasks do not only have meaningful goals; they also are things that people like to do -not only because they are fun but also because they feel confident doing them. One way to do this is letting them propose tasks that can be used for evaluation or for creative assignments, and how they can be evaluated. You will be surprised. People like to co-create. People like to have control of their lives, especially digital natives that are immersed in mobile culture. Mobile devices give them control and they increasingly expect to have it everywhere.

You need not need to co-create all assignments or evaluation activities. Just make it known that they "earn" the right of control and co-creation by accepting some (other) pre-defined activities. Then you make the predefined activities more meaningful because they unlock the other opportunities.

I used this approach with Teacher College students that were going to become secondary school chemistry teachers. They loved it. We even talked about the evaluation problems that I faced when I had to evaluate the very diverse taks products that thay made (songs, artwork, stories, games, test questions, models and prototypes, etc.). We agreed that as long as the student followed basic rules of the media or activity he or she was undertaking (that is, of the "magic circle" they were in- in gamification terms), it would not be taken into account for their grade. What really counted was the required chemistry knowledge input for the task or activity. It really worked! When we were debriefing the evaluation activities (in their design, implementation and evaluation phases) we were all equals because that is a knowledge management requirement. When debriefing activies ended, I went back to the assymetric relationship of being their professor and coach.

I am not suggesting that you do the same thing. Make your own choices, develop your own ways. Students like to know what it means to "do it right". They like to achieve mastery but they should be helped to find their own ways to mastery. So, in the future, when they do not have a professor to guide them, they will know themselves well enough to design and produce their own learning tasks-

Presently, it is widely acknowledged that one of the most important goals of education at any level in the Knowledge Society is "learning to learn". Lets make our contribution to this shared goal. And let´s have fun while we are doing it, too.

Hi Maria, I would appreciate it if you would be kind enough to summarise your answer and more explicitly respond to the question.

Ok, Tony.

I think there are 2 basic ways to solve the problem: either by going after the symptoms or the underlying causes.I will list some options first and explain them later.

Situation: We have students who receive negative feedback in ways that they consider harmful or inappropriate. Problem can be solved by a mix of actions:

(a) Helping students become more successful so that they do not need to receive negative feedback in the first place - I like this one a lot :)

(b) Increase student´s self esteem or make tasks more meaningful (and therefore worthy of the trouble) so that students can recover and/or accept negative feedback more easily.

(c) Increase awareness about the use "positive" of negative feedback in both students and teaching staff, and create "policy guidelines" for negative feedback.

(d) Provide teaching staff with training and tools to solve students´ learning problems so that they can provide options of corrective action along with negative feedback.

(e) Provide teaching staff with adequate technical and administrative support and workplace conditions so as to avoid exerting pressure that they might "take out" on students.

(a) and (b) are linked to what I said about Peter Drücker. We can allow students to link what they are supposed to learn with what they like/know how to do. For example: I let my college chemistry students have alternatives to essay tests at least once in every semester, and I let them link their chemistry knowledge to artworks or social issues or communication or gamemaking. It seems more difficult to evaluate at the star,t but it is incredibly more fun (for everyone). Also, since students have the required skills and are motivated to use them, there is a strong opportunity for the development of "flow" and mastery. Believe me, they pay more attention but they do not feel the increased effort. And solving this type of challenges (which were freely chosen by them) really boosts their self esteem.

(c) requires management action and leadership. People must remember why negative feedback is needed and some limits must be set.

Negative feedback is accepted more readily if it is purposeful and it comes with options for corrective action in a coaching way- Also, it helps if it is expressed without diminishing students (that is, using hard language, irony or sarcasm).

Why would teaching staff diminish students while providing feedback?

- There can be cultural biases (like a "hard teacher is a good teacher" or "the more difficult it is to pass/understand a course, the better the professor" ),

-The teaching staff may be upset that students keep on making the same and/ or stupid mistakes all over again,

-The teaching staff is stressed for personal reasons or for reasons related to the job (lack of support, workplace conditions) and "take it out" on students.

The cultural biases are hard to change and require management action, leadership, training and communication, along with the creation and enforcement of policy guidelines.

If students keep on making the same mistakes, the teaching staff are also involved. Maybe they do not have the needed skills or tools. Or maybe they have to develop too much content or skills or students lack pre-requisites (a system problem which takes time to solve).

Personal problems can not be solved but policy guidelines can positively constrain teaching staff behavior and management action can reduce the presence of stress in the academic workplace.

Excellent respons Maria, neatly summarised. I particularly like your strategy to build self efficacy by developing flow through tapping into student strengths in alternative assessments. Wonderful description of personalised learning. Specifically, you touch on the key issue of what assessment is for - to find out what they know and can do, as opposed to what they can't do.

Many thanks Maria. As Mark says, you have summarised your position effectively. I am intrigued by your use of the terms 'negative' and 'positive' in relation to feedback. This is not a notion that is strongly represented in the relevant resarch literature but I think it is worthy of more attention.

As well Tony, as your original question implies, negative feelings can be attributed to neutral statements, and positive statemenrs may become negative in impact if they arent honest or productive. To Which 'negative' are you most referring? The real negative of 'you did a bad job', the implied negative of 'you could have written like this' or the inferred negative by the student of 'because i got so many corrections, i must have done a bad job'. Just generic statements of course. I am not implying that these speific words would ever be used.