Efficient and Effective Feedback: Is It Possible to Do Both? Dr Julie Hulme Staffordshire University

What are the issues?  Increasing student numbers, and staffing pressures – need for efficiency  Students as “customers” – convenience, technology focussed – need for effectiveness (promotes learning)  National Student Survey (2008) – feedback is area with which students are least satisfied

Two projects  Hulme and Forshaw: Effectiveness of feedback provision for undergraduate psychology students. Funded by HEA Psychology network.  Hulme: Promoting reflective learning and use of feedback amongst undergraduate psychology students. Funded by Staffordshire University Learning and Teaching Fellowship.

Background  Feedback is generally perceived as a tool used after assessment to promote student learning (skills and topic)  However, some staff believe that students do not read their feedback (Carless, 2006)  Some students report that feedback is difficult to understand or that they do not have time to use it (e.g. Higgins, 2000). There are a variety of factors reported in the HE literature that might explain this.

Factors influencing student use of feedback  Language (Higgins et al., 2002) – which may be influenced by sex (Read et al., 2005), educational background (Weaver, 2006) and EFL (Anderson et al., 2001), as well as intended audience for feedback (student vs QA, Randall and Mirador, 2003)  Timeliness (Rust et al., 2005)  Emotional reactions to comments and to marks (Nesbit and Burton, 2006)

Tensions around feedback  Tutors need to provide feedback efficiently  It needs to be clear and constructive and facilitate student learning – time consuming? – but effective

Aims of the miniproject  To establish an accurate picture of student and tutor perceptions of feedback within psychology  To identify means of delivering meaningful feedback to psychology students without increasing workload for staff  Construct dialogue between two groups to allow both sets of needs to be met

What is the picture in psychology?  Online questionnaire, experience of feedback and perceptions of its purposes and uses  213 undergraduate students from a range of UK HE Psychology departments  88 male, 132 female, aged between 18 – 23  52 academic staff from a range of UK HE Psychology departments  22 male, 35 female, aged between

Questionnaire: Experiences of feedback  All staff report providing written feedback at least sometimes (60% always); the only type of work never receiving written feedback is exams  They target feedback comments at the student, double markers and external examiners  About half provide written comments in the text, about half provide a summary, a third use a standard tick sheet, and a third use a module specific tick sheet  Student responses were consistent with this (except some receive feedback on exams)

Item on questionnaire % AlwaysOftenSometimesOccasionallyNever How often read feedback Staff Stud How often understand feedback Staff Stud How often ask for clarification Staff Stud Does feedback help to learn Staff Stud

Types of feedback  Feedback was provided and usually received on a range of issues – psychological content and understanding, reading, writing style and grammar, structure and organisation, referencing and critical evaluation  Written feedback was the most frequent type of feedback, but group and one-to- one verbal feedback were also used

Content-type of feedback Perceived helpfulness (Staff) Perceived helpfulness (Students) Advice on how to improve Praise for doing something specific well Comments about what is wrong A model answer Praise for doing well (not specific) Ticks and crosses Rankings – 1 is best

Timeliness (%)  Staff and students both reported return of feedback typically within 2- 4 weeks StaffStudents Too long2652 About right6846 Too short62

Relevance and transferability  Both students and staff largely agree that feedback can help learning with other pieces of work on the same topic, and with other pieces of work of the same type (eg, essay, report).

Overall Quality (%) ExcellentGoodSatisfactoryPoorVery Poor Staff Students

Open questions  Agreement that written feedback is not ideal, verbal preferred by both – but workload an issue for staff.  Staff feel that their feedback is easy to follow, but students do not always agree  Students do not value feedback on grammar and referencing, whereas staff often think that this is useful.  Problems with handwriting – but typing time consuming.  Repetition of feedback – students not listening (staff), but students don’t know what to do with it (students).  Students report inconsistencies across tutors.  Purpose – students to improve grades, tutors to develop skills  Students report collection can be difficult if distant – but e-collection is impersonal

Conclusions so far…  Psychology staff and students share agreement on many issues around feedback, some positives  Both groups are aware that written communication is failing in some ways – more detail, more specific, more constructive/improvement focussed, more verbal desired  Staff – workload issue  Students – understanding issue  Situation in psychology resembles more generic research  What to do about it?

Miniproject focus groups o Students from 2 universities  Staff from 3 universities  3-8 per group  Student group run by postgraduate student  Staff group run by lecturer  Prompt questions  Stimulus feedback

What to do? : Focus groups  Constructive not destructive or descriptive feedback  Collective definitions?  Staff – must write well, explain and support  Students – must read, understand and seek help  Portfolio system?  Personalised feedback?  Typed not handwritten?  Training for staff AND students?

Next stages of miniproject  eDelphi panel of staff and students for comments  Hopefully pilot scheme in at least one university – Staffordshire University Psychology department are already using slightly modified feedback format

Reflective Learning  Biological Bases of Behaviour, L2  Required for GBR  Marking criteria around four skills: literature searching, reading for understanding, academic writing, critical evaluation  Coursework week 6, seen exam at end

Aims  To facilitate students in using and understanding feedback to promote learning  To promote a skills focus and encourage transferability  To enhance reflective learning and encourage independent improvement from feedback

Coursework  Journal article summary and critique in context of other reading  Tests all 4 skills  Returned in week 9 group seminar – no grade, typed feedback on skills  Reflective exercises looking at feedback, tutor support – what am I good at, what can I improve? Action plan. How will this help in the exam/other modules/work? (transferability)  Grade given at the end of the seminar

Feedback from students  Overwhelmingly positive!  In the first year, they found the coursework difficult, but this year we introduced a formative, peer-marked practice assessment, which helped build confidence  Encourages them to think about skills and to know where to focus  Most could see transferability value, especially for the exam  A little anxious about grade in seminar

Feedback from tutors  4 postgraduate tutors plus me and one other SL  Postgrads said:  Takes too long to produce feedback!  Issues around typing  Need longer turnaround time  One was happy except concerned about individualising feedback using cut and paste  Could appreciate value for students

Conclusions – and what next  Effective?…not efficient yet  Training to improve efficiency  Extra week added to marking time  Demonstrates value of structured support in using feedback for students  Statistical analysis of marks for coursework and exam over three year period – pre- feedback system, first year (no practice) and second year (formative included).  Full qualitative analysis of student and tutor feedback

So…is it possible to be both efficient and effective? If you would like to be involved in the Delphi stage, please give me your name and address