In this post, Michael Daw discusses the challenges of standardising the quality of feedback on student work, and explains how the Deanery of Biomedical Sciences addressed this issue with the introduction of a feedback template. Dr Michael Daw is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Quality in the Deanery of Biomedical Sciences. This post is part of the Mar-May Learning & Teaching Enhancement theme: Assessment and feedback revisited↗️.
Feedback on assessment is crucial in facilitating learning. Markers normally aim to provide feedback that is timely and helpful to the student, but marking is a skill, and we need ways to help markers develop this skill. In common with many other parts of the University, one challenge in the Deanery of Biomedical Sciences is standardising the quality of feedback on student work. Over a number of years, external examiners have been broadly positive about the quality of feedback provided by markers on our courses, but two issues have been highlighted by students.
- There is sometimes inconsistency between markers about the level of detail provided in feedback, sometimes even within the same assessment. In particular, not all markers provide clear advice on how to improve in future work.
- How the mark is derived from the marking scheme is not always clear from the feedback. As Deanery Director of Quality, I read a lot of student feedback, and few things provoke such strong responses from our students than the impression that they have been penalised for something that was not in the assessment instructions or marking scheme. This is, of course, understandable!
Introducing a feedback template
To try to address these problems, we introduced a feedback template with the intention to use it in all relevant assessments across our undergraduate programmes. Such templates are quite widely used but sharing experiences of implementing one may be informative for others considering such a move.
The template requires that just two comment boxes are completed by the marker. One box has the title, “General comments about what was DONE WELL, and what COULD BE IMPROVED in future work”, and the other states, “Explain why the mark was awarded, referencing specific elements of the grade descriptors in the marking scheme”.
The vast majority of our marking is carried out within the Turnitin Feedback Studio in Learn. Setting up a template within this system proved impossible. Instead, we instruct markers to copy the whole boxes together with the titles and feedback in to the ‘Text Comment’ box in Turnitin. We encourage markers to also leave in-text comments.
Together with the boxes, the template includes generic instructions* for markers to which markers can add their own specific instructions. We know that some markers rely on experience rather than applying the published marking scheme. To encourage markers to look at the marking scheme it is presented in the template before the comment boxes. This means the marker must at least scroll past the marking scheme! This template explicitly states that grade descriptors should be referenced. Some of our courses have marking schemes that don’t feature grade descriptors for well-considered reasons. We do not currently require these courses to change their format of marking scheme or to use the template. We will, however, encourage course organisers to to reflect regularly on their approach to providing feedback.
Implementation
The template was first used in a subset of year 2 undergraduate course in 2022/3, and this academic year we have asked all course organisers in years 1 and 2 to use the template where appropriate. We provided all course organisers with generic instruction to share with markers. We have asked both course organisers and students about their experience using the template with mixed responses. In the most basic terms, despite the template’s simplicity, some markers did not use it in the intended ways.
Positive feedback from markers included that they liked the structure imposed and that it instills confidence that the right mark has been provided. Many more markers, however, commented negatively that they felt they were repeating themselves, entering closely related comments in both boxes. Some course organisers still felt positively about the template despite negative comments from their markers, finding that feedback across the marking team was more consistent.
Feedback from students is limited so far but broadly positive, liking both the comments directed at improving work and the explanation of how the mark was determined. A possible unexpected consequence in one course was a sudden big increase in the number of students questioning the mark they were given. One possible explanation is that, with the increased referencing of the grade descriptors, students assumed that the different elements of the descriptor (e.g., structure, use of figures, referencing) contribute equally to the final mark. Students used this to “calculate” a mark from the comments and complained if this calculated mark did not match the mark awarded. To combat this, this year a statement has been added in that course to explicitly state that all elements are not equally important and which elements are most important.
To address marker concerns, this year we have also distributed examples of completed template forms to show markers how we expect it to be used. The template has also been discussed at course organiser meetings to improve uptake. We will continue to monitor and refine the template. In particular, we will try to get more student opinions on the template. Full roll out across our undergraduate programmes will only happen if students appreciate the change.
Guidance for markers
- Address the student as if you were speaking to them, taking care to speak about the work not the student.
- Adopt an encouraging tone which promotes improvement and development.
- If you suggest that the student should have included additional content you should state how this could be done within the word limit, e.g., is there content that could be omitted.
- Mark with kindness and respect.
- Consider adding links to resources that may help students in future work.
Thanks to John Menzies and Phil Larkman for comments on this blog post.
*Generic instructions for marker guidance (above), and the use of comment boxes, were inspired by, and partly based on work by colleagues Neneh Rowa-Dewar and Su Goopy in Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences. Read their blog post here: Turning the tables: Assessing the quality of our feedback to students.
You can also listen to Michael’s two Teaching Matters podcast episodes on assessment and feedback:
- Podcast: Does your assessment really discriminate learning attainment? (29 minutes)
- Podcast: Why use a full range of marks? (18 minutes)
MICHAEL DAW
Dr Michael Daw is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Quality in the Deanery of Biomedical Sciences. He was an Edinburgh graduate in 1998 and returned in 2010 as a Research Fellow before developing an increasing interest in teaching and learning.
