Assessment Feedback: What Do Students Want and Need?

Abstract

This study reports on a school-wide project conducted in a UK higher education institution with the aim of informing enhancements to assessment feedback processes within the institution. Data were collected using online questionnaires (n=127) and semi-structured interviews (n=20). Participants were undergraduate students (from 9 programmes) and postgraduate students (from 21 programmes) from the Education Faculty. Qualitative data were coded and analysed using thematic analysis, while quantitative data were processed by frequency analysis. Findings indicate that students valued written feedback more than other forms of feedback. Regarding effective feedback, students attached considerable importance to specificity, consistency, and developmental orientation of assessment feedback. The findings also contribute to a discussion of feedback literacy by offering some potential approaches to improving students’ strategies for understanding and capitalising on feedback, including offering chances for students to have collective and live communication about the given feedback. Findings also reveal the tension between students’ high expectations of assessment feedback and the time allocated by institutions to marking within the staff workload tariff, and the sufficiency of this time for the creation of high-quality feedback.