Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching

A Reflection on the University of Bristol Engineering Feedback Workshop on 26, February, 2024.

I attended the above event on giving student feedback recently (thanks to the organiser, Ania Udalowska) and many questions were raised for discussions such as: why do students dislike peer feedback; what are the barriers to giving student feedback; how can these barriers be overcome; how can we evaluate the impact of feedback given to students; what is next after giving feedback; can feedback be disentangled from assessment; what do students expect when receiving feedback and finally insights on the varied amounts of feedback available were discussed following diverse presentations.

It was interesting to note that several factors impacted the constraints on giving feedback be it peer to peer or educator to students and students to educator. 

For the students, following research conducted on this (Selwyn et al., 2023) it was a fear that peer feedback might not be as correct as that given by the educator and the feedback given by peers not being aligned to the recommended feedback template. However, the tipping scale at the end of the survey with students showed that students enjoyed giving and receiving peer feedback and would want this to continue. 

For the educator, barriers to giving feedback comprised: having workload allocation to drive quality feedback; too many scripts to mark due to growth in student numbers; having to manage plagiarism matters (particularly due to use of AI which can be complex since management approaches are diverse) amongst others. Suggestions for overcoming these barriers included having smaller course assessments over the term to reduce marking load, devising other methods to reduce marking workload such as having group instead of individual submissions. 

A most interesting insight on how students wish to receive feedback was presented by students from different year groups which showed that students wanted a varied approach including combination of a cohort and individual-centered feedback for them to understand the general context but also learn from individual feedback. Secondly, they wanted feedback to be cyclical i.e., from teacher to student and vice-versa and other suggestions were for constructive feedback that are actionable and meaningful. Finally, feedback should result in a growth mindset and should be continuously challenging and ongoing to drive continuous improvement, not just limited to end of a summative or end of term. 

Dr Oghale Ayetuoma (C) with organiser Ania Udalowska (L) and Professor Naomi Winstone (R)

During the keynote, Professor Naomi Winstone of the University of Surrey, drawing on her collaborative research with AdvanceHE, and DEFT Toolkit (2016; 2013) gave constructive insights into ‘moving feedback forward’ by addressing how to evaluate the impact of feedback to address next steps after feedback and disentangling the feedback assessment loop to move feedback from being passive to an active process. A key suggestion was seeing the feedback transmission process as a start rather than end point by using feedback for sense-making through combination of the following: peer feedback, self-appraisal, goal setting, engagement, and motivation not only for academic skills but also like skills and embedding these approaches into the curriculum (Winstone et al. 2017).  Some ideas presented for addressing ‘What Happens Next’ i.e. the impact of feedback included exploring if the following themes: students desire for the feedback, how they attend to it, how they appraise it, how they elaborate and grow knowledge on given feedback, if they revisit the feedback and adjust this feedback into performance related goals. She promoted the design of feedback just as assessment is designed to make this active giving some tips on how this can be done. For example, 1) Having task series of activities (formative assessments) where feedback is provided, 2) Having two summative assessments where feedback from one feed into the other, 3. Having a draft assessment followed by rework after given feedback, 4) Pre-task guidance by engaging students on knowledge of rubrics to understand areas of importance (Winstone & Carless, 2019. Finally, the use of Reflection and Reflection logs, giving students the opportunity assess feedback given to them and how they will use this, can make feedback more impactful.

In summary and concluding the workshop, various feedback tools presented included using screencast, Blackboard /Turnitin audio feedback, using Turnitin Rubrics and Turnitin itself as a feedback tool, breaking down assessment criteria and using criteria labels for feedback drives clarity to students, using Turnitin Similarity Reports as feedback, giving students the opportunity to assess feedback and making feedback cyclical: peer to peer, student to educator and educator to student to drive all round engagement and finally embedding feedback processes into the curriculum.

References:

Selwyn, B., Ross, J., & Lancastle, S. (2023). Why Do Students Dislike Peer Feedback? European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). DOI: 10.21427/HSTK-1308

Winstone, N. and Carless, D., 2019. Designing effective feedback processes in higher education: A learning-focused approach. Routledge.

Winstone, N.E.,  Nash, R.A.,  Parker, M., & Rowntree, J. (2017) Supporting Learners’ Agentic Engagement With Feedback: A Systematic Review and a Taxonomy of Recipience Processes, Educational Psychologist, 52:1, 17-37, DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2016.1207538

Winstone, N.E. and Nash, R.A., 2016. The developing engagement with feedback toolkit (DEFT).

Feedback Toolkit Advance HE (2013) available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/hea-feedback-toolkit (accessed March 3, 2024)