This document discusses the challenges and promise of personalizing feedback for students. It begins by asking the audience to reflect on feedback they have received that was either damaging or motivating. It then outlines some of the key topics to be covered, including the consequences of standardized "policing" feedback mechanisms, what effective personalized feedback looks like, and strategies for overcoming emotional barriers to receiving feedback. The document questions whether standardized feedback approaches are anti-educational, and presents an alternative paradigm of feedback as a dialogic, relationship-based process. It provides examples of how to bridge the "judgement gap" between a student's self-view and critical feedback, and emphasizes developing students' capacity to engage in feedback dialogue.

1. The perils and the promise of
personalising feedback
Dr Tansy Jessop
St Mary’s Twickenham
25 February 2016

2. Where are you on the continuum?
Strongly agree Strongly disagree

3. Think back to and make jottings on…
• ….feedback you received which had a
damaging effect.
• ….feedback which spurred you on to great
heights.
• Two minute chat with a partner, sharing some
of your experience.

4. My interest in the vexed problem of
feedback…
• The consequences of ‘policing’ mechanisms
• What personalised feedback looks like
• Effective ways to give personal feedback
• Overcoming emotional barriers to receiving
feedback
• Strategies for giving personal, conversational
feedback

5. Feedback may feel like this…
An eternity of endless
labour, useless effort
and frustration…
Homer 8th Century BC

6. Or its 21st century equivalent

7. Yet it really matters…
“Feedback is the single most influential factor
in student learning” (Hattie 2009).
But is hard to get right:
“Not all feedback is good feedback” (Boud and
Molloy 2013)

8. Mechanism 1: The NSS

9. Wow! Our students
love History! Fantastic!

10. Mmm…there may be a
little problem here

11. Fix it!
Ok, we’ll look especially at
polishing up our feedback.
Students seems to find that the
least best thing.

12. Apply spit and polish

13. Try the feedback sandwich?
I cushion the
blow!
The hard truths are nicely
disguised!
Me too - nice and
soft!

14. • Standardisation
• Consistency
• Quality
• Ensuring a good student experience
• Tick box and technical
• Dehumanising
• Anti-educational?
Mechanism 2: The quality apparatus

15. Meet Chris Meredith, Programme
Leader, Theology and Religious Studies
I’m baffled.
Students love my
feedback but they
are a voice in the
wilderness…

16. Read Chris’s feedback
1) What do you like about it?
2) How would you feel receiving it?
3) Why do students love his feedback?
4) What is its hallmark?
5) Why do some feel nervous about it?

17. Is it a paradigm issue?
Scientific Paradigm Naturalistic paradigm
Neutrality Interpretation
External environment One to one environment
Marking apparatus – multiple audiences Conversation – single audience in mind
Written and traceable Free, ephemeral, incidental, more gaps
Convergent Divergent
Standardised Varied
Final word Dialogic
Accountability and evidence Social practice

18. Is it a relationship issue?

19. Winchester A&F research (2008)

20. TESTA evidence

21. What students say…
1. Open pack of TESTA student statements.
2. Decide on the central challenge.
3. What solutions might fix this? (you have no
extra human resources…)

22. My final ‘loose end’ questions
1. How does emotion influence students’ capacity
to use feedback?
2. How can we overcome emotional barriers to
students using feedback?
3. What is the judgement gap, and what strategies
are there to help students recognise it?
4. Why is dialogue (rather than ‘feedback as
telling’) central to effective feedback?

23. 1. The influence of emotion
“Feedback is an inherently emotional business”
(Molloy et al 2013).
“In some cases the interaction between the
learner and the assessment event is so negative
that it has an emotional impact that lasts many
years and affects career choices, inhibits new
learning” (Boud and Falchikov 2007).

24. Processing feedback isn’t that effective
in a deck chair…

25. …nor in a tight corner in the forest
with a brown bear

26. What students say…
• You’re so nervous that you’re going to get it back with
all these red marks saying that it’s wrong.
• It’s always the negatives you remember, as we’ve all
said. It’s always the negatives. We hardly ever pick out
the really positive points because once you’ve seen the
negative, the negatives can outweigh the positives.
• I feel physically sick handing in an assignment. I can’t
sleep for days before because I panic that it’s not right
and it’s so pathetic.

27. 2. Overcoming the barriers
1. Talk about growth from critical feedback
2. Share your experiences
3. Feedback as questioning rather than ‘telling’
4. Be conversational
5. Use formative feedback
6. Develop students capacity to give feedback to
each other
7. Remember that assessment is more relational
than technical.

28. 3. Bridging the judgement gap
People have a particular view of themselves
and the way they operate… incoming data that
challenges this internal view is naturally
confronting (Molloy et al 2013).

29. Strategy 1
The ability of feedback to do
good work depends on the
world view of the individual
learner - ‘fixed’ or ‘entity’
view (Dweck 2000).

30. Strategy 2

31. 4. From monologue to dialogue
“Mass higher education is squeezing out
dialogue with the result that written feedback,
which is essentially a monologue, is now having
to carry much of the burden of teacher–student
interaction” (Nicol 2010).

32. Feedback dialogue ideas
• Inviting reflection quickly (generic)
• Students identify what they want feedback on
• Teachers respond
• Ways to improve iterative ‘cover sheets’
• Peer questions and feedback
• Technology – blogging, audio, screencast.

33. Theory into principles into action
http://padlet.com/tansy_jessop/kwdkdx6tg7yk

34. References
Boud, D. and Molloy, E (2013) Rethinking models of feedback for learning: the challenge of design Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education, 38:6, 698-712 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2012.691462
Boud, D. and Molloy, E (2013) Feedback in Higher and Professional Education. Understanding it and doing it better. Abingdon. Routledge.
Boud, D. and Falchikov, N. (2007) Rethinking Assessment in Higher Education. Abingdon. Routledge.
Dweck, C.
Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004) Conditions under which assessment supports students' learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.
1(1): 3-31.
Hattie, J. (2007) The Power of Feedback. Review of Educational Research. 77(1) 81-112.
Holt, M (1981) Educating Educators. Hodder and Stoughton, in Hussey, T and Smith, T (2002) The trouble with Learning Outcomes, Active
Learning in Higher Education Vol 3(3): 220–233
Hughes, G. (2014) Ipsative Assessment. Basingstoke. Palgrave MacMillan.
Jessop, T. and Maleckar, B. (2014). The Influence of disciplinary assessment patterns on student learning: a comparative study.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03075079.2014.943170
Studies in Higher Education. Published Online 27 August 2014
Jessop, T. , El Hakim, Y. and Gibbs, G. (2014) The whole is greater than the sum of its parts: a large-scale study of students’ learning in
response to different assessment patterns. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(1) 73-88.
Nicol, D. (2010) From monologue to dialogue: improving written feedback processes in mass higher education.
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35: 5, 501 – 517.
Nicol, D. and McFarlane-Dick D. (2006) Formative Assessment and Self-Regulated Learning: A Model and Seven Principles of Good Feedback
Practice. Studies in Higher Education. 31(2): 199-218.
Sadler, D.R. (1989) Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems.
Instructional Science, 18, 119-144.
TESTA (2009-16) Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (www.testa.ac.uk)