Feedback - a BILT overview
Why is feedback important?
For students, feedback can be an important source for:
- Understanding areas of success and areas for development in knowledge and skills
- Insights into disciplinary knowledge and ways of thinking
- Addressing misconceptions in understanding and providing guidance for subsequent assessments and practices
- Developing metacognitive skills and graduate attributes such as critical reflection
As well as receiving these benefits in kind for students, staff can also benefit from high quality feedback practices through:
- Recognising areas for refinement in teaching and learning approaches
- Opportunity for dialogue with students in formative feedback contexts
- Insights into assessment and curriculum design and constructive alignment
What is ‘feedback’?
Feedback can be thought of as both a ‘product’ which provides a learner with information about their understanding and attainment and as a ‘process’ which focuses on developing feedback-seeking behaviour or how and where students will be able to utilise their feedback.
Moving beyond feedback on summative assessments, Evans (2013) thinks of ‘assessment feedback’ as including all ‘feedback exchanges’, covering, for example, self, peer and in and out of class feedback exchanges.
The ‘how’ of feedback?
As well as the nature of feedback, the medium with which feedback is given can also vary. Feedback can be provided to students in different formats, for example (but not limited to): screencast feedback; verbal feedback; highlighting against success criteria. Feedback information may be given to an individual, to a small group or to a whole cohort, and it may be planned and/or spontaneous as part of regular teaching activity.
How do we frame feedback activity at the University of Bristol?
Precise: precise feedback, where students are given specific examples of what needs developing and how to develop it is both helpful and practical. Ideally precise feedback also clearly reflects the marking criteria (which in turn connects to the University-wide marking criteria).
Precise feedback is supported by:
• Induction activities/transition activities to new skills and conceptual ways of thinking
• Structured and timely reflective logs in the Bristol Skills Profile support, embedded within curriculum time
• Augmented-AI feedback activity allows for refinement of feedback approaches and experiences
Actionable: actionable feedback is clear and how students can develop their work for future assessments or applications.
Actionable feedback is supported by:
• University guidance which outlines the return of all feedback to students within 15 working days
• Ensuring formative assessment opportunities are well-planned and connected meaningfully with
• Feedback pro formas, landing maps and other local resources provide a coherence and framework to aggregate feedback activity
Supportive: supportive feedback which constructively feedbacks, leaving the student encouraged and motivated, reflects the University’s ‘Designed for all’ emphasis in its to Assessment and Feedback Strategy. Students and staff make effective use of personal academic tutoring to help understand and recognise the value of feedback.
Supportive feedback is supported by:
• Effective use of personal academic tutoring to help understand and unpack feedback
• A range of different feedback formats provide opportunities for students to engage with feedback activities
• BILT Case studies to illustrate ways of inclusive feedback
• Digital tools, such as FeedbackFruits, allow for additional support
More information about written feedback can be accessed here.
To request research insights into students’ experiences of feedback, contact the Academic Development Team to discuss what support they can offer.
A starting point may well be to consider personal perspectives and experiences of feedback. What forms of feedback have benefited and challenged you in your academic experiences (and beyond)? (How) have these shaped your pedagogical approach?
What are the processes and structures which exist on your course to create particular feedback practices and cultures?
How far do you agree with Winstone and Boud’s (2022) call for ‘the need to disentangle assessment and feedback in higher education’?
Two different benchmarking tools could be used to evaluate feedback (although linked to assessment); an NUS one and the ASSET tool which has been developed at the UoB.
Boud, D., & Molloy, E. (2013). Feedback in Higher and Professional Education: Understanding it and doing it well. London: Routledge.
Evans, C. (2013). “Making Sense of Assessment Feedback in Higher Education.” Review of Educational Research 83 (1): 70–120. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654312474350
Quinlan, K. M., & Pitt, E. (2024). Evaluative feedback isn’t enough: harnessing the power of consequential feedback in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 50(4), 577–591. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2024.2430596
Sadler, D. R. (2010). “Beyond Feedback: Developing Student Capability in Complex Appraisal.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 35 (5): 535–550. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602930903541015
Winstone, N. E., & Boud, D. (2020). The need to disentangle assessment and feedback in higher education. Studies in Higher Education, 47(3), 656–667. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1779687