Feedback on feedback practice: perceptions of students and academics

Abstract

While feedback is widely considered central to student learning, students across the higher education sector commonly report dissatisfaction with the feedback they receive. In contrast, academics often feel they provide quality and informative feedback. This article explores and compares the perceptions of students and academics with regard to feedback practice. The paper presents the results of questionnaire surveys conducted with academics and students at the School of the Built Environment, Liverpool John Moores University. It highlights the perceptions of academics and students with regard to preferences for different types of feedback, timeliness of feedback, students' engagement and interest in feedback, quality feedback and satisfaction with current practice. The findings indicate a significant discord between staff and students in relation to certain aspects of feedback practice, namely opinions on students' engagement and interest in feedback, satisfaction with current practice and feedback preference. Similarities in viewpoints were also found in relation to quality feedback.

Assessing Millennials in College‐Level Fashion Design Studios: A Study of Evidence‐Based Practice

“…I noted in my journal that when students received their rubrics, they appeared to glance at the final grade, and then placed the paper in their backpacks. This is consistent with the findings of Mulliner & Tucker () about students’ lack of focus on feedback, regardless of the volume of writing or printing. Coaching and dialog are needed to encourage students to take ownership of the assessment feedback (Adams et al .…”

“…However, as I wrote more, millennial students seemed to read less and appeared to reject more completely the feedback. This observation is validated in the study by Mulliner & Tucker (2015) who surveyed millennial students about feedback. They found that individual typed and hand-written feedback were perceived as very effective by less than one-half of the responding students.…”

Perceptions of university assessment and feedback among post-16 school pupils

“…There were no significant differences between the two cohorts when students were asked to rank feedback type by order of importance. Mulliner and Tucker (2015) found that students in their study preferred verbal to written feedback. Whereas, the present study showed no preference between verbal and written comments in students' first choice of feedback, and when combining first and second choices, written feedback was rated higher than verbal feedback.…”

“…Large discrepancies have been documented between the expectations of students in their first year of higher education and those of their tutors (Yorke and Longden 2008). Mulliner and Tucker (2015) asked students about their perceptions of feedback and found that they were expecting personal verbal feedback from teachers. This supports the present study where 80 % of students were expecting personal verbal feedback from their lecturers.…”

“…It might seem unrealistic of these students but according to Mulliner and Tucker (2015) perception from university staff is that students are offered personal feedback, the difference being that students at university have to actively seek it. They found staff rated personal feedback even higher than students but that workload of lecturers may be an important factor in determining why students didn't often get this personal verbal feedback.…”