This document discusses perceptions of feedback between students and staff in a School of Biological Sciences. A survey found that while students felt they received plenty of feedback, some felt it could be more informative. Staff saw verbal feedback as very valuable but students were less aware of it. The timing of written feedback varied by marker. Actions to improve student engagement with feedback were implemented, including guidance, peer observation, and campaigns promoting utilization of feedback.

1. Perceptions of Feedback:
Myth & Reality
Jon Scott
School of
Biological Sciences

2. Some of the Issues
• What‟s the fuss about?
• What is feedback?
• A common understanding?
• The module effect
• Expectations
• Utility & Utilisation

4. Learning how to eat Smarties…
• Active engagement
• Rewards
• Common view of success and its
measurement
• Feedback shows what is OK and what
needs changing for next time
• Review of original performance in the
light of feedback

5. Feedback Projects
• Seeing Eye to Eye: Comparing the
Perceptions of Students & Staff
• „Quick Wins‟ Campaign
• Peer Observation of Feedback
• Departmental Guidance
• Student Engagement with Feedback

6. „Seeing Eye to Eye‟ - Context
• 85 1st year students on Biological
Sciences programme
• 1st semester assessments
– Weekly practical report (from day 10), 5 day turn-
round
– Weekly tutorials - 3 essays (3 week turn-round), 1
oral presentation
• Feedback cover sheet
– Strengths
– Areas for improvement

7. Methods
• On-line Questionnaire
– based on Gibbs‟ Assessment Experience
Questionnaire
– posted early in semester 2
• Response rate: 57 % yr 1 54% yr 2
• 1st year Focus Groups
• Structured interviews with academic
staff

8. Student Participants
• Questionnaire – 57% of yr group
• Focus Groups – 25% of yr group
50
Percentage of Total
40
30
20
10
0
First 2.1 2.2 3/A Pass Fail
Degree Class Questionnaire
Focus Group

9. Staff Participants
• 14 Module Convenors
• 7 Personal Tutors (non 1st yr teachers)
• 1 Student Learning Centre Advisor

10. Perceptions of Feedback Types
Received (Focus Group)
• Unprompted:
– Comments on cover sheets
• Prompted:
– Comments on oral presentations
– Annotations on scripts
• Specifically asked:
– Verbal feedback in practical classes,
tutorials & personal tutors

11. Types of Feedback Given (Staff)
• Written feedback – cover sheets & annotations
• “They are probably less aware of the direct help they
get by talking to people in lab classes, I think”,
• “… interactions are the most useful in terms of
students‟ appreciation of things like concepts that you
are trying to explain. I think just the nature of handling
the number of students in 1st year practicals means
we can‟t give immediate feedback in terms of what the
correct answer was but concepts, approach and
understanding the bigger picture, they should leave
with that as feedback”.

12. Quantity of Feedback
On this course I get plenty of 67%
feedback in how I am doing
The feedback is usually too 35%
uninformative or brief to be
helpful
The more feedback I receive, 89%
the more I learn

13. Quality of Feedback
The feedback uses language 87%
that is easy to understand
The feedback shows me how to 73%
do better next time
I can seldom see from the 35%
feedback what I need to do to
improve
The feedback does not help me 11%
with subsequent assignments

14. Quality & Utility of Feedback
• “Sometimes the comments are helpful but
sometimes it‟s comments like when you get say
60% in a practical report and they tell you it
could be „better written‟. But you‟ve done all
that you can to write it to the best of your ability,
so it‟s kind of vague, I don‟t know where to
improve”.
• “One of my friends had a higher mark than me
and she got more comments than me in the
„places to improve‟. I had nothing and was like
„well I need to improve and you don‟t so why
have you got the comments?‟. That‟s what I
was thinking”.

15. Quality & Utility of Feedback
• “I got one write up which was 90% and
she [the marker] was still like „you could
improve it here or here‟. It was quite a
lot of comments considering it was a
high mark and it was really good
because it was „ok, that‟s what I need to
be doing”.

16. Timing of Feedback
It doesn‟t matter if a module has 51%
finished before I receive feedback
as I know the advice will be
relevant to my new module
The feedback usually comes back 56%
promptly
Whatever feedback I receive comes 15%
back too late to be useful

17. Timing of Feedback
• “…all that depends on the marker. This
time we‟ve had one who was
sometimes taking two weeks to get the
reports back. Another one has got them
back on the Tuesday, having had them
on the Wednesday before. So it
depends really on who you‟ve got.”

18. Utilisation of Feedback
I have received clear and sufficient guidance on 42%
how to understand and use feedback
I read the feedback carefully and try to understand 71%
what is being said
I use the feedback to go back over what I have 55%
done in the assignment
I have good intentions to act on feedback I receive 29%
but forget suggestions for improvement next time I
do coursework
I do not use the feedback when revising 31%
I tend to only read the marks 9%

19. Utilisation of Feedback
• “A lot of the time it‟ll depend on the mark as to
how much I do look at it [the feedback]. If I‟ve
got a really high mark, I‟ll tend to look and think
„oh I‟ve done well‟ and just put it away. If I‟ve
got a really bad mark I‟ll look and think what
I‟ve done wrong, why I got that mark”
• “If I expect a mark, low or high, and it‟s that, I
don‟t really read the comments. If I get a mark
that‟s really different from what I expected then
I‟ll really read the comments”.

20. Students‟ Reflections on Staff Views
• They probably think we don‟t read it and
just put it to one side.”
• “I‟m sure some of them think they‟re just
doing it and it‟s a bit pointless and you‟re
not going to look at it anyway.”
• “I suppose some of them [markers] must
hope that if they bother to write
something down then it gets read. But
they must accept that there‟s a great deal
of variation between students”.

21. Staff Views
• “I suspect it varies, some will read it all and
come to see you to ask what it means. Others, I
suspect, only read the marks and check there is
not too much red ink….I think if the number
reflects what they are expecting then they don‟t
pay too much attention to it.”
• “My experience is that feedback is definitely
used, it‟s a very constructive thing, a useful
thing and a good proportion of students are
using feedback.”

22. Issues & Actions
• School vs University experience
• Recognition of feedback
• Consistency
Timing
Content & Structure
• Utility
„Feed forward‟
 Encouraging engagement with feedback
 Language

23. Actions
• „Quick Wins‟ Campaign
• Peer Observation of Feedback
• Departmental Guidance
• Student Engagement with Feedback

25. Engaging Students with Feedback
We asked students:
• Name five types of feedback
you receive on your work
• What is the most useful piece
of feedback you have received?
• Name one way in which you
have used feedback to improve
your learning

26. Postcard Campaign

27. “Name five types of feedback you receive
on your work” (top 10 answers)
Number of appearances of answer
0 100 200 300
written comments on assignments
verbal
coursework marks/grades
seminar/tutorial/workshop/problem…
scheduled meetings or office hours…
email
marked exam/test paper/problem sheet
from peers
after presentations
feedback cover sheet

28. % Respondents naming 5 different formats of
feedback received Biological Sciences vs University
Verbal
Written
Marks/grades
Biol Sci
University
Email/online
Group feedback
Peers
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
% Respondents

29. Formats of feedback by year group
Verbal
Written
Marks/grades
Final years
Email/online 2nd years
1st years
Group feedback
Peers
Friendfeed
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
% Respondents

30. “What is the most useful piece of feedback
you have received?” (top 10 answers)
Appearance of answer as % of all answers
0 5 10 15
better structuring of assignments
how to improve
identify strengths and weaknesses
advice on referencing
critical feedback
advice to read more
be more clear/concise
advised to re-read work before submitting
breakdown of where marks were lost
advice to focus on answering the question

31. Ways in which feedback has been used
Reflect on feedback when
producing next…
Improved writing skills
Read more to improve
understanding
Identify areas needed to study in
more depth
Improved referencing skills Biol Sci
Feedback motivated me to Uni
improve
Read through work before
sumission
Learnt from mistakes
Guided me on revising
Improved presentation skills
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
% Respondents

32. Activities for next year include…
• Standardised information on feedback in Course
handbooks
• Institutional guidelines on time taken for feedback
to be received
• Consistency in feedback
• Keep up awareness of feedback as an issue –
autumn term campaign working with the Students‟
Union
• Repeat the Peer Observation of Marking exercise in
2012-13
• Continuation of campaigns including: I love my
academic