Beyond feedback: developing student capability in complex appraisal

TLDR

While detailed feedback is widely used in higher education, its impact is often limited, prompting extensive research into its structure and timing and highlighting the need for students to understand and identify specific aspects of their work. This article outlines the type of knowledge students require and how they can acquire it. Students must internalize three core concepts—task compliance, quality, and criteria—and build a repository of tacit knowledge to apply feedback. Keywords: formative assessment, feedback, qualitative judgement, peer assessment, criteria.

Abstract

Abstract Giving students detailed feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of their work, with suggestions for improvement, is becoming common practice in higher education. However, for many students, feedback seems to have little or no impact, despite the considerable time and effort put into its production. With a view to increasing its effectiveness, extensive theoretical and empirical research has been carried out into its structure, timing and other parameters. For students to be able to apply feedback, they need to understand the meaning of the feedback statements. They also need to identify, with near certainty, the particular aspects of their work that need attention. For these to occur, students must possess critical background knowledge. This article sets out the nature of that knowledge and how students can acquire it. They must appropriate for themselves three fundamental concepts – task compliance, quality and criteria – and also develop a cache of relevant tacit knowledge. Keywords: formative assessmentfeedbackqualitative judgementpeer assessmentcriteria