Designing for productive feedback: an analysis of two undergraduate courses in biology and engineering

ABSTRACT

In the wake of a growing emphasis on students taking a more central role in shaping their own learning, it has become increasingly important that course designs cater for productive feedback. This study explores how feedback opportunities were incorporated into two course designs that in different ways aimed at engaging students actively in knowledge construction, and what might have contributed to making feedback in those contexts productive. A thematic analysis of course documents and interviews with teachers and students reveals that both courses included productive feedback opportunities. These were generated by arranging task and responsibilities in such ways that students could make use of feedback in their immediate work and their future learning. Our findings suggest that planning for productive feedback entails more than generating good feedback comments. Instead, teachers should view feedback as integral to their course designs and consider the practices of their disciplines during the planning process.

KEYWORDS:

• Feedback
• higher education
• instructional design
• student experience

Acknowledgements

This study was carried out in the context of the QNHE project (Quality of Norwegian Higher Education; www.qnhe.no), funded by the Research Council of Norway under the FINNUT programme. We would like to thank Hege Hermansen for her valuable comments on the manuscript, the reviewers for their helpful suggestions and the participants in the study for allowing us to gain insight into their work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For more information see Damşa (2018), Esterhazy (2018a), and www.qnhe.no.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway under the FINNUT programme [grant number 237960].