What feedback literate teachers do: an empirically-derived competency framework

Figures & data

Table 1. Summary of the teacher feedback literacy competency framework.

Level	No	Category	Examples	References
Macro	1	Plans feedback strategically	• Identifies feedback as a strategic intervention • Minimizes negative effects of simultaneous tasks in different subjects • Develops strategies which involve students • Uses inclusive feedback practices for all students	Henderson et al. 2019b; Jessop and Tomas 2017; Jonsson 2013
	2	Uses available resources well	• Apportions feedback resources to most effect • Ensures students can readily access feedback data • Mobilises students for multiple feedback roles	Henderson et al. 2019b; Malecka, Boud, and Carless 2020
	3	Creates authentic feedback-rich environments	• Models feedback processes on authentic disciplinary processes • Makes feedback processes familiar and commonplace • Assists students to utilize information from the environment in which they operate	Esterhazy 2018; Dawson, Carless, and Lee 2021; Winstone, Balloo, and Carless (2020)
	4	Develops student feedback literacy	• Explains feedback to students and their role in it • Promotes feedback as something useful in the world • Sets expectations around the nature of feedback	Malecka, Boud, and Carless 2020; Molloy, Boud, and Henderson 2020; Carless and Winstone 2020
	5	Develops/coordinates colleagues	• Briefs colleagues to focus on priorities in feedback processes • Trains tutors/sessional staff to undertake high quality feedback activities • Mutually shares successful feedback practices with colleagues	Broadbent, Panadero, and Boud 2018
	6	Manages feedback pressures (for self and others)	• Manages workload to ensure that greatest feedback priorities are met • Organises feedback information generating sessions to mimimise teachers repetitive work • Designs for student self-correction, leaving teacher time for other feedback	Henderson et al. 2019b; Hounsell 2007
	7	Improves feedback processes	• Collects evidence about the effectiveness of feedback on learning • Establishes processes that reveal if students have utilized feedback information • Utilises information from students to improve their own practices	Ajjawi et al. 2019
Meso	8	Maximises effects of limited opportunities for feedback	• Uses feedback selectively where it can have most impact • Allocates time to feedback events commensurate with their importance • Coordinates feedback with other pedagogical practices	Boud and Molloy 2013
	9	Organises timing, location, sequencing of feedback events	• Sequences feedback events to maximise their influence on student learning • Ensures that feedback information is available in time for subsequent tasks • Times feedback activities early in the semester	Tomas and Jessop 2019; Winstone and Boud 2020
	10	Designs for feedback dialogues and cycles	• Stages tasks to maximise effects of feedback information • Prompts students to identify particular kinds of feedback information they need • Uses nested assessments in which input is given in stages in building a more substantial outcome	Bloxham and Campbell 2010; Nicol 2010; Crimmins et al. 2016
	11	Constructs and implements tasks and accompanying feedback processes	• Designs feedback activities to enable students to self-assess before input from teachers • Sources and deploys a wide range of exemplars to demonstrate features of good work • Undertakes in-class discussions about feedback	Daniel, Gaze, and Braasch 2015; Esterhazy and Damşa 2019; Hawe and Dixon 2017
	12	Frames feedback information in relation to standards and criteria	• Explicitly connects feedback information to standards to be achieved • Has students judge their own work against explicit criteria • Reviews rubrics from the point of view of their value for feedback purposes	Dawson 2017; Sadler 1989
	13	Manages tensions between feedback and grading	• Distinguishes between feedback information and grade justification and deploys each appropriately • Designs feedback processes to enable students not to be distracted by marks or grades • Avoids discourse of grades in discussing quality work	Winstone and Boud 2020
	14	Utilises technological aids to feedback as appropriate	• Deploys audio/video/screencast feedback as needed • Uses Learning Management Systems (LMS) for recording and accessing feedback information • Uses technology to enable more efficient/scalable feedback processes	Mahoney, Macfarlane, and Ajjawi 2019; Grigoryan 2017
	15	Designs to intentionally prompt student action	• Provides persuasive rationales for the importance of student actions in feedback processes • Designs activities so students can incorporate feedback responses into subsequent assignments • Invites students to show how they have utilized feedback information in their work	Bird and Yucel 2015; Henderson et al. 2019a
	16	Designs feedback processes that involve peers and others	• Designs exemplar exercises that involve students providing feedback • Facilitates and equips students to engage in peer feedback processes • Connects students with other feedback providers	Harland, Wald, and Randhawa 2017; Nicol, Thomson, and Breslin 2014
Micro	17	Identifies and responds to student needs	• Fine tunes their comments to individual student needs • Ensures students receive usable information • Relates feedback inputs to students’ self-assessments of their work	Winstone et al. 2017; Pitt and Norton 2017
	18	Crafts appropriate inputs to students	• Provides comments that identify needed improvements • Poses questions that open students to new ways of thinking about their work and other ways of doing it • Strategically avoids wasting time on low-level corrections	Lipnevich and Smith 2009; Hattie and Timperley 2007
	19	Differentiates between varying student needs	• Provides differentiated feedback support to different groups of students • Identifies students at risk of not being able to use feedback processes well • Seeks to engage difficult to involve/ marginal/ excluded students	Jones and Gorra 2013; Pitt, Bearman, and Esterhazy 2020; Adcroft and Willis 2013

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