‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’ Engaging undergraduate students in feedback and feedforward within UK higher education

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the use of audio feedback with 182 final year undergraduate students in a post-92 university studying on a Business Management undergraduate degree. It looks at the problems associated with traditional forms of feedback and feedforward and explores the reasons why students fail to engage with the comments made by lecturers regarding their performance in assessment. Feedback and feedforward are widely recognised to be vitally important for students looking to improve their grades, but the authors found that only 60% accessed their feedback when it was given in the standard, written, form with reasons ranging from students having an instrumental approach to assessment, through to a perception that the comments made were generic and lacking in meaning. This research has demonstrated that an alternative approach to feedback and feedforward, using audio rather than written communication, can increase both the number of students accessing feedback, but also students’ engagement with what has been said. By using an audio-based method to hear both the comments and the final grade, students felt more thought had been put into the marking process and that comments were personalised to them, making them more likely to engage with it.

KEYWORDS:

• Feedback
• feedforward
• assessment
• audio feedback
• podcasting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

Full ethical approval granted prior to the commencement of data gathering. Coventry University ethics project reference number: P93217

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Wolstencroft

Dr. Peter Wolstencroft works as an Associate Head of School (Student Experience) in the School of Strategy and Leadership at Coventry University. His research interests lie in exploring the nature and practice of educational leadership and promoting innovative teaching and learning techniques designed to engage students. He is the co-author of a best-selling textbook, The Trainee Teacher’s Handbook: A companion for initial teacher training, as well as a variety of articles looking at education in its many forms. He stresses the transformational power of education and firmly believes in the words that used to be written over the entrance to the library in Pill, Newport ‘libraries gave us power’.

Leanne de Main

Dr. Leanne de Main is the Head of School of the School of Strategy and Leadership in Coventry University. Leanne holds degrees in Business Finance and a Masters in Management. Her PhD researched the voicelessness and misrepresentation of the working class. Leanne’s research broadly centres on widening participation and access to Higher Education, with a particular focus on inclusive and authentic assessment and feedback for diverse student groups. Leanne’s recent research includes evaluating the accuracy and value of student self-assessment, the challenges presented to working class students/academics, care leavers and understanding attainment/award gaps between minority student groups. Leanne is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Certified Management and Business Educator (CMBE).