Quality of Feedback in Higher Education: A Review of Literature

Abstract

In raising the standards for professional educators, higher educators must be prepared to provide the highest quality feedback on student performance and work products toward improved outcomes. This review of the literature examined the major findings of 70 quantitative, mixed methods, or qualitative studies found in higher education journals across a range of disciplines. Multiple recommendations and results for feedback emerged which fall into the categories described by Susan Brookhart. This review found research for each of Brookhart’s categories, with results indicating differences between the perceptions of adherence to sound feedback practices versus the reality of implementation, the potential for innovative tool use, and a disagreement about the effectiveness of peers for providing effective feedback. Indicators for quality within the research confirmed the importance of commonly accepted standards such as positivity, specificity, timeliness, and encouraging active student participation. Additionally, trends and themes indicated a need for the consistent implementation of the feedback exchange process and flexibility to account for student input/preferences. Greater consistency toward the application of these quality indicators should be undertaken when determining the quality of higher education feedback for preservice teachers prior to undertaking summative licensure assessments.

Effect of formal training workshop on teachers’ quality of written feedback in higher education

“…In concurrence with Haughney 22 this paper reaffirms the need to train teachers in the provision of helpful feedback. The present paper clearly showed that interventional workshops have the potential to enhance the quality of teachers' WFB.…”

“…1,19,20 Thus, earlier studies have considered teachers' training as instrumental to provide effective feedback. 3,5,[21][22][23] Training can enable the teachers to determine the most effective method of providing feedback in their own teaching context. 1 Nonetheless, hardly a handful of studies, have attempted to examine the effects of teacher training in any aspect of WFB to date.…”

“…Ferris 22 trained graduate students of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) on how to provide effective feedback to their future students on their written assignments. The study emphasized on providing encouragement and personalized comments.…”

Performance Appraisal in Universities—Assessing the Tension in Public Service Motivation (PSM)

“…Treating universities as business organisations is associated with neoliberalism, and the new public management (NPM) and performance appraisals tend to be perceived as black boxes in a larger NPM 'machine' [9]. The growing importance of the market and competition in the higher education sector brings with it an increase in the accountability of the university and its employees [10,11]. However, the traditional culture of the university is based on a large extent on Merton's CUDOS(communism, universalism, disinterestedness, organized skepticism) ethos reflected in individual commitment, scientific teamwork, dedication and intrinsic motivation over extrinsic rewards of the academic staff [12,13], which are components of public service motivation (PSM).…”

Students Perceptions on Teaching Design of Power Electronics Using Student-Response Systems: Thematic Content Analysis of Interviews

“…In the context of higher education, parameters that touch upon students' characteristics (particularly, student engagement and motivation) coupled with learning design parameters (e.g., proper instructional feedback that accounts for the actual student needs) have received increased attention during the last decades from the educational community. This is mainly due to the fact that research suggests they are linked to high quality learning and deep student understanding [1], [2]. Furthermore, aligning the learning objectives, with the teaching methods and the student assessment is widely acknowledged in higher education [3].…”