Writing Effective Feedback

Written feedback should be considered as part of feedback processes. Feedback processes are the designs, activities and opportunities for students to act on feedback and to develop their feedback literacy – these are covered in other sections of the BILT Feedback Guide.

Written feedback, although often seen to be justifying grades on summative assessment, is an important part of supporting students in improving their understanding and work in subsequent assessments.

Written feedback takes a number of forms, such as: in-text annotations (such as QuickMarks on Turnitin); the use of drop-down comments; and/or a more extended prose summary at the end of an assessment.

Any form of feedback information provided, written or otherwise, should be with a recognition of the context of the assessment itself; for example, what are the threshold concepts, knowledge and skills which will be addressed in the student’s subsequent study and assessment and how does the feedback provided take account of this.

Research on what makes effective approaches to written feedback include:

Critique or Praise: Winstone and Nash (2024)

Winstone and Nash’s 2024 exploratory study, in recalling feedback information on an exam paper, ‘students were more likely to remember critique comments over praise, and more likely to recall critique that was process-focused rather than task-focused'. Their paper also suggests that effectiveness of written feedback is lessened when accompanied by grade feedback.

Tone: Playfoot, Horry and Pink (2024)

The research of Playfoot, Horry and Pink (2024) participants explored clarity, tone and encouragement of written feedback information and the likelihood of their use. Multiple regression analyses established that ‘intention-to-use ratings were higher for comments which were ‘nice’ (supportive, encouraging, motivating, positive in tone) and ‘usable’ (clear, constructive, helpful)’.

Efficacy: Glover and Brown (2015)

Research on the type of comments in written feedback by Glover and Brown (2015). The research explored the efficacy of feedback comments, such as whether they are content focussed, provide a corrective comment or identify technical phrasing errors. The research also explores Willingham’s (1990) consideration of ‘hyper-specific corrections’ in written feedback and the cost-benefit analysis of these type of comments. Glover and Brown emphasise: the need for criterion referencing in written comments; the importance of explaining weaknesses in responses and how to address these; acknowledging student effort.

Perceptual mechanisms: Ajjawi et al. (2021)

A meta-analytical study by Ajjawi et al. (2021) identified four perceptual mechanisms for consideration in feedback approaches: 1) perception of relatedness as a mechanism; 2) perception of competence and autonomy as a mechanism; 3) emotion as a mechanism; 4) achievement as context. The study also recognised that open-ended tasks have more opportunities to convey expectations and notions of quality.

Co-creation: O'Donovan et al. (2021)

An article by O’Donovan et al. (2021) which reports on student research associates who worked with teaching staff to consider ‘what makes good feedback good?’. Whilst the findings from the research emphasise the importance of developing student feedback literacy and engagement, what is characterised as ‘good’ written feedback is: lesser focus on technical factors; greater specificity of comments; recognition of student effort; signposted opportunities to turn written feedback into relational dialogue.

Here are some BILT recommendations for writing effective feedback:

Written feedback should be precise:

Specific, identifying examples of what needs improving and how to improve
Using the disciplinary terms and language
Reference the marking criteria

Written feedback should be actionable:

Focussed on process-based comments, rather than task-based comments (for example, commenting on a transferable skill, such as ‘what were the procedures you could have included in your methodology?’ rather than stating ‘you identified the incorrect sampling method’

Written feedback should be supportive:

Constructive in tone: including identifying the more successful aspects of the assessment
Avoid indications such as ‘?’ or ‘!’
Avoid repeated hyper-specific corrections

After reflecting on this BILT guide to effective written feedback and the literature and practice which informs it, how would you critique the following examples of written feedback?

Critique Example A in light of the top tips:

Your essay lacked structure and your referencing is problematic.

Critique Example B in light of the top tips:

I felt as though your assessment was quite hit and miss in places. Good job on your ethical considerations though.

Critique Example C in light of the top tips:

A confidently written and well-researched study; there were a few missed opportunities to take more abstract perspectives on some of these conditions. Perhaps you could have made more on recent research on […] in this regard?

Critique Example D in light of the top tips:

Your discussion thoughtfully outlines some of the key literature in this area; in your next discussion, how can you group different theorists in order to create more of an overview?

BILT worked with the Bristol SU to develop further insights into best shared approaches around feedback. The output of the research can be viewed here: Assessment Feedback Focus Groups Report.pdf

A number of focus groups have been conducted as part of the University of Bristol’s Curriculum Enhancement Programme. The following quotes are designed to illustrate and voice different students’ experiences and personal responses to receiving written feedback.

‘Tutors that give you a mark, or a sentence on each thing, but you’re not really sure where the thing you did wrong is in the essay … A sentence is fine if you know exactly what it’s talking about and you can apply that feedback to the rest of your work.’

‘I find written feedback is generally stuff you’ve done wrong, and they don’t tend to include things to work on in future as a way to improve.’

‘I felt that there was a real sense of bitterness in the feedback that I got, to the point where it was not…It wasn’t objectively telling me what I’d done wrong, it was insulting. They were insinuating that I didn’t deserve to be at university, that my work wasn’t university level work… It felt really … it didn’t feel professional at all. It was quite shocking.’

‘I still remember I used that feedback as a guide when I write my final report and it works.’

‘I remember one of the feedbacks I got was like, “some of your referencing is a bit off,” and I looked through it and I couldn’t figure out which one was right, which one was wrong, which one was off. Even if they just highlighted one, or said, “this is how you do it,” it would help.’

‘I think that having some kind of personalised feedback – “this is what you’re doing well, this is what you need to improve upon” – would improve relationships between students and tutors and allow you to feel your work is being appreciated.’