Useless and Useful Feedback – students’ perspectives

So, what do students really think about the feedback they get?

Dr. Tendai Dube attended the Association for Learning Technologists (ALT)’s Online Winter Conference 2019 (11 – 12 December) and was intrigued and thought to share these perspectives on feedback. One of the presenters asked participants to give examples of useless feedback they had ever received, and then examples of feedback they found useful. The following raw comments given by some participants echo what some of our students here at Loughborough also said about their experiences and hence they are worth checking out. [At least 4 students volunteered to share their feedback experiences during a Wolfson School’s staff workshop on Assessment and Feedback in October 2019]. It is hoped that this will help guide academic staff on the nature of feedback they give their students.

Useless feedback	Useful feedback
General comments which don’t give any personal feedback/direction	Computer Science teacher would record himself and give audio feedback on group projects. Very informative and personal to us
I always found it frustrating to get feedback on something you couldn’t then change or improve on. I used to get written feedback on essays at uni which then wasn’t useful for the next essay at all.	Balanced, Observed, Objective, Specific & Timely
It came at the end of the course. Too late to be of use to me.	Students negotiating marking criteria using previous examples of assessments – this can lead to peer and self-assessment
Feedback my daughter got in Art: “you have to push this more” – no explanation what that means	Challenging/stretch comments – that help change your thinking rather than just knowledge-based
Written feedback not easy to understand/unclear	Timely with clear guidance on what the marker is looking for
Not relevant	When I did my teaching qualification the feedback I received made me feel like the assessor had really read my work and acknowledge the amount of effort
When it is only rubrics which are copy-pasted	specific, personalised, achievable
‘could do better’ but no explanation how…	Highlighting where I have done well and therefore areas where I could improve next time. It’s useful to see examples and steps that are personalised to take forward.