Exploring cultures of feedback practice: the adoption of learning-focused feedback practices in the UK and Australia

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there have been calls in the literature for the dominant model of feedback to shift away from the transmission of comments from marker to student, towards a more dialogic focus on student engagement and the impact of feedback on student learning. In the present study, we sought to gain insight into the extent to which such a shift is evident in practice, and how practice is shaped by national and disciplinary cultures. A total of 688 higher education staff from the UK and Australia completed a survey, in which we collected data pertaining to key influences on the design of feedback, and the extent to which emphasis is placed on student action following feedback. Our respondents reported that formal learning and development opportunities have less influence on feedback practice than informal learning and development, and prior experience. Australian respondents placed greater emphasis on student action following feedback than their counterparts in the UK, and were also more likely than UK respondents to judge the effectiveness of feedback by seeking evidence of its impact on student learning. We contextualise these findings within the context of disciplinary and career stage differences in our data. By demonstrating international differences in the adoption of learning-focused feedback practices, the findings indicate directions for the advancement of feedback research and practice in contemporary higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Formative assessment
• assessment design
• assessment cultures
• cross-country comparison
• learning effects

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr Kieran Balloo for insightful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Naomi Winstone http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8157-8274

David Boud http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6883-2722

Notes

1 We found no differences in any of our variables according to institution type (teaching- vs. research-focused; all ps > .05); for the sake of brevity, this variable is not discussed further.

2 Whilst we recognise that our quantitative analysis of emergent codes limits in-depth exploration of responses, we are aware that full qualitative analysis of open-ended survey responses is in many cases inappropriate (LaDonna, Taylor, & Lingard, 2018).

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article was supported by the Society for Research into Higher Education through the award of a research grant (RA1648) to the first author, and by the Office of Learning and Teaching in Australia through the award of a grant to a team based at Monash and Deakin Universities which included the second author.