Perceptions of Feedback One Year On: A Comparative Study of the Views of First and Second Year Biological Sciences Students

Abstract

The results are presented of a survey comparing the perceptions of first and second year bioscience students regarding their experience of feedback on coursework. The two cohorts displayed similar levels of satisfaction regarding the quantity and timing of feedback, even though changes in assessment format entailed different actual experiences. By contrast, the second year students expressed markedly lower levels of satisfaction regarding the guidance received in using feedback and the utility and transferability of the feedback received. These findings are discussed in the context of changes made to the first year of teaching aimed at facilitating the transition to study at university.

Keywords:

• feedback
• student perceptions
• survey

Introduction

The importance of the role of feedback in enhancing student learning has been confirmed in a number of studies (Hattie et al., 1996; Black and Wiliam, 1998; Hattie and Jaeger, 1998; Weaver, 2006; Duncan, 2007). Furthermore, there is a growing weight of evidence supporting the development of good practice within specific areas of provision including key aspects such as, timeliness, frequency, level of detail, comprehensibility and forward-looking guidance etc. (e.g. Glover and Brown, 2006; Gibbs and Simpson, 2004). Despite this recognition, the recent National Student Surveys in the UK (2005–2008), and similar surveys in other countries (Krause et al., 2005) continue to highlight students’ relative dissatisfaction with the feedback they receive compared with other aspects of their higher education experience.

In a previous paper we described the findings from a study comparing the perceptions of first year bioscience students with those of the staff teaching them regarding the feedback provided on coursework (Bevan et al., 2008). Following on from that study, this paper describes the key findings from a project to compare the views of first and second year students following a Biological Sciences (BS) undergraduate degree programme in a small, research intensive university. A structured approach to giving feedback has been established within this School of Biological Sciences, based on the annotation of scripts accompanied by the use of feedback cover sheets that ask the marker to comment on the strengths of the piece of work and to identify up to three areas where the work could be improved. There remains, however, a range of variables that impact on how first and second year students perceive and utilise feedback; such variables include individual differences in staff approaches, differences in assessment format and correspondingly, feedback given, and differences in subject matter.

The structure of the first year programme has been developed to try to smooth the transition between school and university. Although the content level is largely unchanged, coursework has been re-structured so that, during the first semester, students undertake weekly, practical-based coursework exercises in most modules. The coursework exercises start within the first two weeks of students’ university studies and have a marking turn-round time of five days. The schedule is designed so that the marked scripts, with feedback, should be returned before the submission of the next piece of work. The first year students also give oral presentations and write short essays in their tutorial groups, the marking time for the latter being 2–3 weeks. In the second semester of the first year and then moving into the second year there is a progression towards students undertaking fewer, larger pieces of work for which the turnaround time is typically three weeks, which is in line with the University of Leicester’s guidelines. However, as a consequence of the structure of the modules and the timing of these larger assessments, it is commonly the case in the second year that the marked work may be returned after the end of the module for which it was undertaken.

The aims of this part of the study were to compare the perceptions and use of the feedback by first and second year students to ascertain areas of agreement and disagreement and their responses to the different styles of assessment and feedback.

Methods

The views of first and second year BS students were collected using an anonymous questionnaire, modified from Gibbs Assessment Experience Questionnaire (Gibbs and Simpson, 2003), comprising 27 questions regarding students’ perceptions of various aspects of feedback, including quantity, timing, utility and quality. Students were invited to evaluate their views using a Likert scale, ranging from ‘Strongly agree’ to ‘Strongly disagree’. Details of the questionnaire can be found in Bevan et al. (2008). The ‘Feedback Questionnaire’ (FQ) was posted on the University’s virtual learning environment, Blackboard™, during Semester 2. All first and second year students would, therefore, have experienced a full semester of teaching at their current level. Where more detail was needed to interpret the responses, structured focus groups were undertaken with the first year students. These focus groups involved 25% of the year group and were constructed to ensure representation from across the full range of academic performance. Detailed analyses of the first year focus group responses can be found in the companion paper by Bevan et al. (2008). Ethical approval for the study was obtained in accordance with the University’s research protocols.

Student response rates to the FQ were 45 (57%) and 37 (54%), for the first and second years, respectively. Statistical analysis (Cronbach’s Alpha) indicated the data to be reliable and to be representative of the spread of students across the performance range of the cohorts.

Results

In a number of aspects, the first and second year students were similar in their views regarding the feedback received, for example in terms of the amount of feedback, its timing and whether they read the feedback or only looked at the marks (Fig. 1). Thus, 68% and 62% of the students, respectively, responded positively saying they ‘received plenty of feedback’ on their courses and just under 20% in each cohort felt that the feedback was not returned promptly.

For both groups, approximately 70% of the respondents disagreed with the view that they only read the marks and did not look at the feedback comments and, by the same token, over 80% responded that they read the feedback carefully and tried to understand it (Fig. 1).

Whereas the students from the two cohorts showed agreement regarding the receipt of the feedback and their initial reading of it, there were, differences regarding their perceptions of the guidance and the utility of the feedback received, with the second year students responding more negatively than the first years in these important areas. Figure 2 shows that whereas 42% of the first years considered that they had received sufficient guidance on how to understand and use feedback, only 16% of second year students considered they had received adequate guidance. In practice, both cohorts had received the same amount of guidance, which was delivered in the first semester of their studies. In contrast, though, there was close agreement between the two cohorts in relation to understanding of the feedback: in both year groups, just over 70% of students agreed that the feedback used language that was easy to understand and, in correlation, approximately 25% of each cohort reported that they did not understand the feedback (results not shown).

Figure 1 First and second year students’ responses to questions regarding perceptions of the amount and timing of feedback and engagement with the comments

Regarding the utility of the feedback received, the second years responded more negatively in terms of whether the feedback showed them what to do better (60% of second years agreed vs 73% of first years) and how to improve ( 27% vs 42%, respectively). Furthermore, only 22% of the second years compared with 51% of first years felt that feedback was transferable, i.e. that the feedback received from one module would be relevant to subsequent modules (Fig. 2). Following up on all these points with the focus groups, the biggest issues related to the consistency of the different markers on different pieces of work within the same module and also between modules, with the overall response being skewed by negative experiences:

“It wouldn’t have been so bad, but as we mentioned that was the one with the not so great demonstrators. If it had been in other modules where we had very good demonstrators, and which were very well organised practicals …”

Despite these differences between the two cohorts in terms of the perceived utility of the feedback provided, there was a reversal of this trend when the students were asked how the information was used. For example, whereas 68% of second years reported that they used the feedback to go over what they had done in their assignment, only 55% of first years agreed with this view. Similarly, 35% of second years compared with 44% of first years agreed that they had good intentions to make use of feedback but had forgotten about the suggestions for improvement by the time they were preparing the next pieces of coursework. These views were reflected in comments from the focus groups, which revealed a variable approach to using feedback:

“I’m sure some people don’t look at it and it’s a case of ‘right I’ve got that back I’ll put it away and not look at it. I think it depends on who you are really, but I think they [the markers] should assume that you are going to use it.”

“I probably wouldn’t pay as much attention [to the feedback] because I had other things to do. Maybe if there was more time in between assignments then I would take time to actually read up on things that I didn’t completely understand.”

Figure 2 Responses of first and second year students regarding the guidance and utility of feedback received

The FQ and the focus groups also included an open question asking students to suggest how the value of feedback could be increased. The majority of responses from both years reinforced the quantitative data regarding expression of the concerns about receiving more information in feedback as to how to improve future work. Provision of marking schemes/model answers and improving the consistency of marking were also suggested, with a common comment from both year groups being that ‘The amount of feedback given depends largely on the marker’. However, some comments were year specific. In this context, for example, the first years particularly included a request for re-scheduling of key skills lectures, because they had already undertaken some forms assessment before they received the guidance regarding that format. In the case of the second years, there were also requests for information about how they were performing in comparison with their peers.

Discussion

Over recent years, the structure of the first year, particularly the first semester, programme in the School of Biological Sciences has been refined in order to smooth the transition from A-level (which represents the admissions route for 90% of the intake) to first year degree level. The strategy has been to provide frequent, (relatively) low-stakes assessments with provision of prompt feedback to the students, before they were required to submit the next assignment. This process is initiated ten days into the course and students normally submit one assignment per week throughout the first semester. The rationale for these approaches was to facilitate engagement from the outset, to provide students with early, ongoing guidance as to their progress and as to the expectations in terms of level.

During the second semester of the first year and into the second year of the programme, there is a progressive move to fewer, larger coursework assessments, which are perhaps more typical of ‘traditional’ university assignments. Wherever reasonably possible, the turn-round time for marking was kept within the University’s standard of 3 weeks. In terms of the level of satisfaction with the absolute amount of feedback received and the promptness of return (Fig. 1), there was little difference between the perceptions of the two year groups, even though the timescales were substantially different. Particularly in relation to the promptness of return, this agreement perhaps reflects the matching of experience to expectation and also the relative timing of return in relation to the submission date for the next piece rather than the absolute time taken to return the work; both of which are key determinants of students’ perceptions (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004). The match of experience to expectation is also reflected in the comments from the focus group highlighting the inconsistency of practice as being the main issue, rather than the timing per se. Lack of consistency also appeared as one of the most common negative comments in the open comments section of the NSS (NSS, 2008). In terms of timing of feedback, Hattie and Timperley (2007) comment that there are differential effects, with immediate feedback being most important for task-oriented exercises, such as the regular practical reports being undertaken by the first years students, compared with additional benefits accruing from some delay in feedback on the development of essay writing, which more reflects the format of assessments for the second years.

The difference in views of the two groups with regard to the value of feedback when received after the end of a module is striking: just over 50% of the first years, compared with 22% of the second years felt that it did not matter if the module had finished because the feedback could be transferred to the next modules. The reason for this difference is not immediately obvious, but it could be viewed as being one of the downsides of module choice: in the first year, the programme is compulsory, with no choice of modules and several of the modules feed on, one from the next, particularly in the first semester. By contrast, the second year has only one core module, all the others being option choices. As a result there is no structured continuity between modules in terms of subject matter or assessment format. Furthermore, although markers are encouraged to provide generic feedback on the module cover-sheet, anecdotal observation of the sheets shows that this is still often not the case, with the feedback often being related to subject-specific content that is not perceived as being as transferable (Glover and Brown, 2006).

Approximately 70% of both cohorts disagreed that they only tended to look at the marks and over 80% claimed to read the feedback carefully (Fig. 1), which is in contrast with the findings of other studies (e.g. Wojtas, 1998). Though, interestingly, the focus group responses from the year 1 cohort suggested a different perception by the students and also that they felt that staff would take a different view of usage (Bevan et al., 2008).

The issue of students’ understanding of feedback, and feeling able to make use of it is one that has been reported from other studies (Chanock, 2000; Higgins, 2000; Carless, 2006). In terms of the perceptions regarding the guidance on how to understand and use feedback and the utility of the feedback in helping improvement, in this study, the second years responded markedly less positively than the first years (Fig. 2). The origins of the differences in perception regarding the guidance given are therefore not clear, though they could be interpreted as a general response by a substantial proportion of the second years to the feeling that the feedback given was not of value in showing them how to improve (cf. Duncan, 2007; Hattie and Timperley, 2007). Despite this, more of the second years reported that they would use the feedback, both to go over the work done and to make use of the guidance when preparing the next piece of work. Given the contrasting time-scales in terms of return of feedback and the preparation of the next assignments, the reasons for these differences, particularly the latter, are unclear.

As well as the differences in assessment structure being experienced by the first and second year students, there is evidence that students show changes in motivational attitudes during the course of a three-year programme. For example, Jacobs and Newstead (2000) reported a decline in the motivational importance students attached to aspects of study from the first to the second years of their degree programmes, with some recovery during the final year of study. The lower ratings given by the second year students regarding the utility of the feedback might be considered as reflecting these shifts in overall approach to study. This is contrasted, however, by the observation that the second years responded equally positively to the first years regarding issues such as the timing of return of feedback and the overall amount received. This contrast in responses, therefore, suggests that the second year students’ lower level of satisfaction with the utility of the feedback represents a real concern and is not a reflection of changing attitudes to study.

In this study, we have reported on the perceptions of first and second year students regarding the feedback received on coursework. By contrast with the second year students, the first year students follow a structured programme, with no module choice and an emphasis on frequent, low-stakes assessments, particularly during the first semester. However, the differences in perception and use of feedback between first and second year BS students highlighted here, suggest that such a culture may not prepare students fully for the next transition from first to second year of the degree.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the students and staff from the School of Biological Sciences for their cooperation in this study. Funding was provided by the Teaching Enhancement Forum and University of Leicester CETL, GENIE.