In this extra post, Dr Sue Widdicombe and Dr James Donaldson, share their recent work on a programme-level assessment and feedback scheme, which aimed to provide a mechanism  that helps provide feedback that both explains the student’s mark and transfers clearly to the student’s future work. Sue is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences (PPLS), and James is Manager of the PPLS Skills Centre.

---

Feedback is clearly important and many of us spend a lot of time providing it through our comments on students’ work. The aims of this feedback are (very broadly) two-fold. On the one hand, it is designed to help students understand the mark they have been given on a particular assignment: students need to know what they did well and where they fell short. But feedback also helps students aim beyond the assignment, both practically, by helping them see how they could improve their writing next time, and reflexively, by helping them develop academically through nurturing skills, assessment literacy, and a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses as writers and researchers. Feedback is also, however, a source of dissatisfaction for both the giver and receiver. Lecturers bemoan the fact that many students do not engage with feedback, while students express disappointment over issues such as timing and unclear requirements (Evans, 2013). In many cases, students do not understand the feedback or know how to make the suggested improvements (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Winstone et al, 2017). At this point, it will be useful to look at some actual examples of feedback. Here are some typical comments on Psychology essays:

Note that these comments refer to specific aspects of the essay in question. This specificity is important in helping the student to understand their mark, but we then expect the student to translate the specific comments into general advice that will be relevant for subsequent assignments. In other words, we expect them to apply these comments to future work, and this is not always easy. This difficulty is compounded by the modular format of degree programmes, as students are expected to find generalisations across courses that may have very different content and requirements (Jessup, 2024). Is there a better way to provide feedback that both explains the mark and transfers clearly to future work? We have been working on a programme-level assessment and feedback scheme that aims to achieve this balance without adding to the marking burden. The scheme helps students build skills over time and across different courses in their degree programmes. It does this by giving students feedback on the skills relevant to the detailed comments on what is written. Why feedback on skills? Skills are clearly transferable, and feedback across different assessments and courses is thus more clearly aligned. By providing students with information and resources to help them acquire and practise these skills, we aim to promote students’ engagement with their learning in a way that empowers them and allows them to develop progressively over time and across modules. What are these skills? After discussing the matter with staff and students, carrying out an analysis of feedback comments on essays, checking alignment with the University Common Marking Scheme descriptors, and conducting several trials, we settled on five main categories of skills:

1. Showing your knowledge and understanding of the literature and topic
2. Showing your reasoning for the claims and arguments you make
3. Critically evaluating other arguments and the literature
4. Writing in a clear, focused, and well-organised manner
5. Referencing ideas and the literature appropriately

These skills are described in a rubric that tells students how to demonstrate them. The descriptions aim to be clear, practical and action-oriented to make it clear that this is about what students are doing and can do. For example, demonstrating understanding relies on skills and judgement in describing and explaining. Reasoning is shown by:

“developing an argument or position in relation to the topic or question. Stating clearly why studies/findings/methodological details are significant. Spelling out the implications (theoretical or practical) of findings or concepts. Providing convincing evidence for your argument or for the points you want to establish. Supporting each claim with specific and relevant research evidence, examples, or arguments.”

The rubric includes descriptions of how the skills may be shown with different degrees of competence. It is given to students before they submit their assignments and is then used by markers in Turnitin to classify their in-text comments using a drop-down menu as shown below. In this way, tutors can give feedback on the essay and skills simultaneously and efficiently.

We have tried out the scheme on a range of courses in Psychology and Linguistics and have found it to have several benefits. It is easy to implement in Turnitin and allows us to address both feedback functions clearly and simply. It helps students see how what they are doing (or not) relates to a skill they will use in future assignments. It has also helped us to build a common language for phrasing feedback and to train tutors to ensure consistency in marking and attention to the many aspects of academic writing. Furthermore, it has provided a useful resource for the PPLS Skills Centre in training writing tutors and encouraging students to identify the issues they would like help with. Students, tutors and course organisers have all been very positive about the scheme. Of course, not all courses are the same, but we have adapted the rubric to make it relevant to different courses across different subject areas while maintaining sufficient similarity in skills-category labels and descriptions for students to appreciate common ground. We are happy to make the materials available to anyone who would be interested in using it, adapting it, or simply finding out more.

---

Sue Widdicombe

Sue Widdicombe is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. She teaches courses on Social Psychology and Qualitative Methodologies.

---

James Donaldson

James Donaldson is Manager of the PPLS Skills Centre. He trains tutors to deliver one-on-one writing appointments and develops material to help students improve their academic skills.