Collinson Library: `Pedagogy &amp; Classroom Practice: Research

Research into Feedback

Feedback Research Papers

The Power of feedback by John Hattie and Helen Timperley
Feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement, but this impact can be either positive or negative. Its power is frequently mentioned in articles about learning and teaching, but surprisingly few recent studies have systematically investigated its meaning. This article provides a conceptual analysis offeedback and reviews the evidence related to its impact on learning and achievement. This evidence shows that although feedback is among the major influences, the type offeedback and the way it is given can be differentially effective. A model offeedback is then proposed that identifies the particular properties and circumstances that make it effective, and some typically thorny issues are discussed, including the timing of feedback and the effects ofpositive and negative feedback. Finally, this analysis is used to suggest ways in which feedback can be used to enhance its effectiveness in classrooms.
Seven keys to effective Feedback by Grant Wiggins
Advice, evaluation, grades—none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback—and how can it improve learning?
Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement.
Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is—and isn't.
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From Educational Leadership
Inside the Black Box Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam King’s College London School of Education
Raising the standards of learning that are achieved through school education is an important national priority. Governments have been vigorous in the last ten years in making changes in pursuit of this aim. National curriculum testing, the development of the GCSE, league tables of school performance, initiatives to improve school planning and management, target setting, more frequent and thorough inspection; these are all means to the end. But the sum of all of these doesn’t add up to an effective policy because something is missing.
Learning is driven by what teachers and pupils do in classrooms. Here, teachers have to manage complicated and demanding situations, channelling the personal, emotional and social pressures amongst a group of 30 or so youngsters in order to help them to learn now, and to become better learners in the future. Standards can only be raised if teachers can tackle this task more effectively - what is missing from the policies is any direct help
with this task.

Unpacking the feedback process: an analysis of undergraduate students’ interactional meaning making of feedback comments by Rachelle Esterhazy & Crina Damşa
In light of a growing emphasis on student centred learning approaches,feedback is viewed as an activity that has potential to facilitate higher education students’ explorations of knowledge contents and practices.However, research shows that feedback does not always lead to the expected student engagement. This qualitative study proposes a feedback conceptualization informed by sociocultural notions, in which students co-construct meaning from the teacher’s feedback comments through interaction over time, with each other, the teacher, and relevant resources. Based on an in-depth analysis of undergraduate biology students’ discussions of feedback comments, we found that the feedback process takes the form of a meaning-making trajectory students move along by orienting towards and elaborating on both task-specific and general-knowledge content. Thereby, we contribute to a better understanding of what constitutes feedback processes viewed from an interactional perspective and generate knowledge on how to tailor our feedback practices to better address the students’ needs.

Research Projects

Feedback for learning: closing the assessment loop
Assessment feedback for learning is the lynchpin to students’ effective decision making, and the basis of improved learning outcomes. However, feedback is under-utilised and often misunderstood by both students and educators and there is no single feedback strategy or model that has been shown to work across all contexts. The Australian Higher Education sector is in need of a useful and useable approach for improving feedback for learning.
We have a surfeit of models, frameworks, principles and strategies in the considerable expanse of literature exploring feedback for learning, yet we have little guidance on how to choose amongst them. As such, our project aims to enhance student learning and experience by improving institutional, educator, and student capacity to stimulate and leverage assessment feedback.