Feedback to Students (2003/04)
Contents: Process | Feedback Forms | Feedback on Placements | Assignment Briefs | Feedback on Overall Performance
Following Institutional Audit, the Quality Assurance Committee nominated Feedback to Students (Section 3 of QA16) as the theme for the Internal Academic Audits in 2003/04. The procedures for internal academic audit can be found in QA54. Audits were undertaken in:
- Department of European Studies and Modern Languages
- Department of Mechanical Engineering
- Natural Sciences programme in the Faculty of Science
- undergraduate programmes in the School of Management
- MSc/PG Diploma in Sport and Exercise Medicine in the School for Health
- HND in Business at Wiltshire College (Chippenham Campus).
Reports of the audits were considered by the Department and relevant Faculty/School/Division Teaching and Quality Committee, as well as by the Quality Assurance Committee.
The audits identified a number of areas of good practice. The Quality Assurance Committee agreed that these should be disseminated to Departments and Directors of Studies and be published on the web.
There are a number of resources available on the Higher Education Academy website that can be used to support assessment and feedback issues.
Feedback Forms
The audits acknowledged the variation in feedback forms; in some departments generic forms for all coursework were appropriate (ESML), while others used bespoke feedback forms. In the samples reviewed grids could include learning outcomes, skills, content, marking criteria. Some forms had a bank of pre-printed comments, which allowed the easy identification of common flaws (Mechanical Engineering, Physics). This was felt to be particularly useful for larger cohorts, offering detailed feedback more efficiently. An overall comments section on the assignment front sheet allowed staff to indicate what a student should have done to improve the assignment (ESML, Wiltshire College). In many cases staff also provided extensive comments and annotations to assignments (ESML, Chemistry).
While for some subjects, detailed comments on the script were most appropriate, in general feedback sheets appeared to generate consistently better quality feedback and enabled both marker and student to keep a copy.
There was also evidence of detailed and timely feedback in a Blackboard pilot which enabled both staff and student to keep a marked copy and assignments to be used as case studies for the whole group (Mechanical Engineering).
Feedback on Placements
In the School of Management students received extensive feedback throughout the placement process with a high level of interaction between the student and the placement staff, helping them to reflect and better facilitate their learning. Students on placement were visited by either placement staff or their personal tutor and feedback was gained from the employer and the visiting tutor in the form of a report. The placement debrief included a self-reflection activity that was facilitated by the placement officer. The placement report form used by the Department of Chemistry provided very detailed feedback on skills.
Assignment Briefs
Good practice included the detailed assignment briefs in the sample from the Department of Physics, which contained clear expectations on the piece of work. Wiltshire College used grading criteria forms and assignment briefs to ensure that students were clear about what was expected of them. In ESML, programme handbooks included details of assessment conventions; marking descriptors were felt in particular to be valuable.
The Department of Mechanical Engineering held a briefing session at the start of the MSc programme to explain standards and expectations - students were first asked to analyse a sample of projects and dissertations and were then told which were good and which weak and the reasoning for this.
At the beginning of each year the Director of Studies in ESML sent a memo to staff in the Department outlining the assessment conventions.
Feedback on Overall Performance
There was evidence of good practice in feedback to the whole class; for example verbal feedback on common mistakes in addition to individual feedback (ESML). Regular tutorials allowed students to raise concerns and discuss their progress individually and as part of the wider group (Wiltshire College).
In ESML, the Director of Studies identified students whose academic performance was cause for concern by continually compiling a list of students considered to be ‘at risk’ using information from class, marks and personal tutors.
In addition to good practice identifying students whose academic performance was cause for concern good practice was also noted where the Head of Department wrote a letter of commendation to students who had done very well (Mechanical Engineering).