Creating a dialogue for more effective and sustainable feedback

We provide students with feedback in a multitude of ways – written comments on assessments, through classroom and online discussions, pre-prepared feedback on quizzes, to name just a few. Researchers such as Ramaprasad (1983) and Sadler (1989) argue however, it only counts as feedback if it is used to inform and alter future performance. Students need to understand how to use the feedback we give them to improve their work, and they need to have the opportunities to do so. However, students report that feedback can be difficult to interpret, poorly-timed or not focused on those aspects of their work they would like feedback on (Ajjawi and Boud, 2017).  

How can we make our feedback practices more sustainable, to help students understand how to use their feedback and make sure that the time we spend providing feedback is not wasted? Conceptualising feedback as a dialogue, a conversation between student and teacher, rather than as a uni-directional input, positions students as active participants in the feedback process, promoting engagement and self-regulation of learning (Ajjawi and Boud, 2018). This approach aligns with Laurillard’s (2002) Conversational Framework, which frames learning as a series of interactions between teachers, students and peers and on which our DES learning design approach is based.

Ajjawi and Boud (2018) identified several features of feedback dialogue, including inviting students to seek feedback, asking questions, encouraging elaboration and reframing of ideas, providing support and encouragement, acknowledging emotional responses to feedback, and ensuring there is enough time for dialogue before the next task. Carless (2016) recommends incorporating integrated guidance and feedback, peer feedback, technology-enhanced feedback and self-evaluation. 

Strategies for incorporating these features into your own feedback practices include: 

• Providing clear guidance on what is expected, including exemplars to help students understand these expectations, and sharing hints and tips based on common questions and problems; 
• Asking students to self-assess their work against the assessment criteria or rubric and identify areas or aspects of their work that they would particularly like feedback on – and then responding to the self-assessment and request as part of your feedback; 
• Including a section in assessments in which students identify and explain how they have incorporated previous feedback; 
• Providing prompts to encourage and help students to engage with their feedback e.g. ‘what was the key piece of feedback you received?’, ‘what did you learn from the feedback process?’, ‘how will you apply this feedback?’ – these might form the basis of a feedback journal; 
• Asking students for feedback on their feedback and inviting them to ask follow-up or clarifying questions; 
• Incorporating peer feedback activities in which students share, discuss and receive feedback on work from their peers; 
• Providing audio or video feedback, which can help feedback feel more personalised and personable and stimulate further discussion.  

Feedback is a vital part of the learning process but can be a source of much frustration for both staff and students. We need to rethink how we provide feedback to ensure students can use it to inform and improve future work. Framing feedback as a dialogue empowers students to actively engage in the feedback process, supporting reflection and further learning.  

References 

Ajjawi, R. & Boud, D.  (2017) Researching feedback dialogue: an interactional analysis approach, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(2), 252-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015.1102863  

Ajjawi, R. & Boud, D. (2018) Examining the nature and effects of feedback dialogue, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(7), 1106-1119. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1434128   

Carless, D. (2016). Feedback as Dialogue. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_389-1 

Laurillard, D. (2002). Rethinking University Teaching: A Conversational Framework for the Effective Use of Learning Technologies (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315012940 

Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a design science : building pedagogical patterns for learning and technology. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2012.742279

Ramaprasad, A. (1983). On the definition of feedback. Behavioral Science, 28(1), 4-13. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/bs.3830280103 ; 

Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18(2), 119-144. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00117714