Professor Naomi Winstone PFHEA NTF

The legacy and sustainability of a university education requires student independence and ownership of learning. Adopting a student-centred constructivist approach to teaching and learning allows students to develop a web of self-constructed, interconnected understanding, and supports their development into lifelong learners. The efficacy of this approach is illustrated with a case study relating to a series of academic skills tutorials for first-year psychology students. The tutorial materials, activities and teaching techniques were rated as more useful by students when delivered using constructivist principles. The use of constructivist techniques also enabled students to make larger gains in their essay grades over the course of the academic year. The implications of using such teaching methods in higher education are discussed.

Teaching and assessing large classes can be reframed from focusing on overcoming difficulties with large classes, to seeking the unique educational opportunities provided by such learning environments. We discuss data and examples illustrating how active learning and formative assessment can be successfully embedded into the teaching of large groups. Students evaluated these approaches favourably, and recognised that their own learning was enhanced through being active participants in lectures and having opportunities to receive feedback on their understanding within lectures. Furthermore, the experiences of teaching staff using these techniques were found to be largely positive, demonstrating awareness of the benefits for students as well as benefits for their own engagement and development. These data suggest that if we find the unique opportunities for learning afforded by large groups, the lecture has the potential to become a powerful learning environment

In negotiating the transition to Higher Education, students bring core expectations from their A-level study that are likely to be different to the lived reality of university study. Bridging the transition to university requires an in-depth understanding of the differences between the imagined and the reality; the expectations and the experience. Psychology students’ perspectives of their first-year experiences were collected through activity-oriented focus groups (Colucci, 2007). Discrepancies between expectations and reality were expressed in terms of the degree of autonomy required, the nature of ‘the lecture’, and achievement. In many cases, students displayed contradictory perspectives, desiring autonomy but also wanting the security of the more dependent approach to learning they have been socialised into. It is suggested that first-year students are passing through a key period of transition, and during this period of ‘liminality’ they are attempting to leave one identity behind and instead inhabit a new, more autonomous identity

The ability of children and young people to form and express their perspectives through qualitative research studies can be constrained by difficulties that they can face in typical interview situations. This article describes and evaluates an interview method using concrete and engaging activities designed to enable autistic young people to voice their abilities and perspectives. Participants’ sense of self-identity was explored using traditional semi-structured interviews and novel activity-oriented interviews. The latter method provided a context within which autistic young people were better able to voice their perspectives. The efficacy of this method and considerations for its use are discussed.

Background

Traffic light labelling of foods—a system that incorporates a colour-coded assessment of the level of total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt on the front of packaged foods—has been recommended by the UK Government and is currently in use or being phased in by many UK manufacturers and retailers. This paper describes a protocol for a pilot randomised controlled trial of an intervention designed to increase the use of traffic light labelling during real-life food purchase decisions.

Methods/design

The objectives of this two-arm randomised controlled pilot trial are to assess recruitment, retention and data completion rates, to generate potential effect size estimates to inform sample size calculations for the main trial and to assess the feasibility of conducting such a trial. Participants will be recruited by email from a loyalty card database of a UK supermarket chain. Eligible participants will be over 18 and regular shoppers who frequently purchase ready meals or pizzas. The intervention is informed by a review of previous interventions encouraging the use of nutrition labelling and the broader behaviour change literature. It is designed to impact on mechanisms affecting belief and behavioural intention formation as well as those associated with planning and goal setting and the adoption and maintenance of the behaviour of interest, namely traffic light label use during purchases of ready meals and pizzas. Data will be collected using electronic sales data via supermarket loyalty cards and web-based questionnaires and will be used to estimate the effect of the intervention on the nutrition profile of purchased ready meals and pizzas and the behavioural mechanisms associated with label use. Data collection will take place over 48 weeks. A process evaluation including semi-structured interviews and web analytics will be conducted to assess feasibility of a full trial.

Discussion

The design of the pilot trial allows for efficient recruitment and data collection. The intervention could be generalised to a wider population if shown to be feasible in the main trial.

National anthems are salient representations of nation states, used to define social and personal boundaries (Folkestad, 2002). Whilst children develop knowledge of national symbols such as national anthems by the age of 5 (Jahoda, 1963), little is known about how a national anthem contributes to a sense of national identity, or the affective reactions elicited by hearing it. Two exploratory studies investigated 8–10-year-old children’s (N = 92) thoughts, feelings and associations when listening to the British National Anthem, in comparison to pieces of music varying in their degree of national salience. The 10-year-old children generated more national associations to the National Anthem than younger children. More national associations were generated to the National Anthem by children with high, as opposed to low, national identity, but only for the 9- and 10-year-old children. It is argued that the National Anthem might play a role in the maintenance and validation of national identity, but that there are developmental effects operating within this relationship.

Feedback is a key concern for higher education practitioners, yet there is little evidence concerning the aspects of assessment feedback information that higher education students prioritise when their lecturers’ time and resources are stretched. One recent study found that, in such circumstances, students actually perceive feedback information itself as a luxury rather than a necessity. We first re-examined that finding by asking undergraduates to ‘purchase’ characteristics to create the ideal lecturer, using budgets of differing sizes to distinguish necessities from luxuries. Contrary to the earlier research, students in fact considered good feedback information the single biggest necessity for lecturers to demonstrate. In a second study, we used the same method to examine the characteristics of feedback information that students value most. Here, the most important perceived necessity was guidance on improvement of skills. In both studies, students’ priorities were influenced by their individual approaches to learning. These findings permit a more pragmatic approach to building student satisfaction in spite of growing expectations and demands.

Feedback is one of the most powerful influences on students’ learning. There is a strong evidence base on effective delivery of feedback: what it should contain and how it should be framed. However, we know far less about students’ reception of feedback information. If we want students to engage with and utilise the feedback we provide, then what skills do they need, and how do we nurture these skills? In this resource, we first outline some of the key contemporary issues facing Higher Education practitioners in the domains of assessment and feedback, and we consider the role and responsibility of the student in the feedback process. We then present a case study, which outlines the development and implementation of the Developing Engagement with Feedback Toolkit (DEFT). Finally we present each component of the toolkit in turn: a feedback guide, a feedback portfolio, and a feedback workshop.  

Recent approaches to assessment and feedback in higher education stress the importance of students’ involvement in these processes, where effective reception of feedback is as important as effective delivery. Many interventions have been developed to support students’ active use of feedback; however, students’ engagement will be influenced by their perceptions of the utility of such strategies. We presented students with descriptions of ten possible feedback engagement interventions, and asked them to discuss which would be more useful and why. Students clearly articulated the perceived benefits of each intervention, but also discussed issues that might preclude strong engagement. These issues illustrate that students believe they lack the skills required to engage with interventions, and also show how student emotion and cognition are likely to influence their engagement. We offer some recommendations as to how the framing of such interventions could promote stronger student engagement.

Background: The concept of pedagogic frailty has been proposed as a unifying concept that may help to integrate institutional efforts to enhance teaching improvement within universities by helping to maintain a simultaneous focus on four key areas that are thought to impede development. Purpose: The variation in internal structure of the four dimensions of pedagogic frailty and the links that have been proposed to connect them are explored here through the analysis of interviews with academics working in a variety of disciplinary areas. Methods: The application of concept map-mediated interviews allows us to view the variable connections within and between these dimensions and the personal ways they are conceptualised by academics working across the heterogeneous university context. Results: The data show that academics conceptualise the discourse of teaching in various ways that have implications for the links that may be developed to integrate the elements within the model. Conclusions: Whilst the form and content of the maps representing dimensions of the pedagogic frailty model exhibit considerable variation, it is suggested that factors such as academic resilience and the explicit use of integrative concepts within disciplines may help to overcome some of the vulnerabilities that accompany pedagogic frailty. The data also raises questions about the links between factors that tend to be under individual control and those that tend towards institutional control.

This study aimed to explore experiences of learning, friendships and bullying of boys with autism attending specialist and mainstream schools, and those of their parents. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 11 boys with autism, aged 11 to 17 years, and nine of their mothers. Thematic analysis identified four key themes relating to experiences of friendships and bullying, risk factors, protective factors and outcomes. Overall, the findings indicated that five of the 11 participants had been subjected to bullying, particularly those in mainstream schools (four out of six). Further, if risk factors relating to autism or the school culture were not mediated by protective factors such as self‐esteem or supportive friends, various negative outcomes were identified as more likely, including mental health issues and effects on learning and relationships. Therefore, although not inevitable, mainstream settings may increase the likelihood of negative experiences, as they have fewer resources to protect children against the risk of bullying.

For feedback to be effective, it must be used by the receiver. Prior research has outlined numerous reasons why students’ use of feedback is sometimes limited, but there has been little systematic exploration of these barriers. In 11 activity-oriented focus groups, 31 undergraduate Psychology students discussed how they use assessment feedback. The data revealed many barriers that inhibit use of feedback, ranging from students’ difficulties with decoding terminology, to their unwillingness to expend effort. Thematic analysis identified four underlying psychological processes: awareness, cognisance, agency, and volition. We argue that these processes should be considered when designing interventions to encourage students’ engagement with feedback. Whereas the barriers identified could all in principle be removed, we propose that doing so would typically require – or would at least benefit from – a sharing of responsibility between teacher and student. The data highlight the importance of training students to be proactive receivers of feedback.

Much has been written in the educational psychology literature about effective feedback and how to deliver it. However, it is equally important to understand how learners actively receive, engage with, and implement feedback. This article reports a systematic review of the research evidence pertaining to this issue. Through an analysis of 195 outputs published between 1985 and early 2014, we identified various factors that have been proposed to influence the likelihood of feedback being used. Furthermore, we identified diverse interventions with the common aim of supporting and promoting learners' agentic engagement with feedback processes. We outline the various components used in these interventions, and the reports of their successes and limitations. Moreover we propose a novel taxonomy of four recipience processes targeted by these interventions. This review and taxonomy provide a theoretical basis for conceptualizing learners' responsibility within feedback dialogues and for guiding the strategic design and evaluation of interventions.

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have been described as being ‘neither fish nor fowl’, occupying a role between student and teacher. Their multiple identities are commonly framed within the literature as a key challenge. This study explored the perspectives of GTAs when discussing their teaching work, through activity-oriented focus groups with nine GTAs from a UK university. Thematic analysis revealed that whilst GTAs showed a lack of clarity over their identity, they are actively involved in the process of ‘identity work’ through negotiating an emerging professional identity. Furthermore, liminality of status, being neither fully a student nor teacher, allows GTAs to operate with identity malleability, adjusting their most salient identity to meet the demands of the situation. It is argued that rather than occupying an ‘ambiguous niche’, GTAs occupy a ‘unique niche’ and the identity malleability they possess affords the optimum conditions in which to engage in identity work.

Many topics within the psychology curriculum can be described as "sensitive", with potential for students to experience distress and discomfort. Given the pressure experienced by academics in Higher Education, the potential for student distress or complaints might lead lecturers to adopt a risk-averse approach to teaching, which is well represented by the concept of Pedagogic Frailty (Kinchin et al., 2016). Through interviews with nine psychology lecturers, we uncover the common concerns that arise when teaching sensitive topics, and the strategies employed to overcome these concerns. We also suggest that where teaching is strongly influenced by the values underpinning Psychological Literacy, those teaching sensitive topics may be less vulnerable to the characteristics of Pedagogic Frailty, as the risks associated with the teaching of sensitive topics are offset by the perceived importance of exposing students to sensitive topics. The implications for the teaching of psychology are discussed.

Many argue that effective learning requires students to take a substantial share of responsibility for their academic development, complementing the responsibilities taken by their educators. Yet this notion of responsibility-sharing receives minimal discussion in the context of assessment feedback, where responsibility for enhancing learning is often framed as lying principally with educators. Developing discussion on this issue is critical: many barriers can prevent students from engaging meaningfully with feedback, but neither educators nor students are fully empowered to remove these barriers without collaboration. In this discussion paper we argue that a culture of responsibility-sharing in the giving and receiving of feedback is essential, both for ensuring that feedback genuinely benefits students by virtue of their skilled and proactive engagement, and also for ensuring the sustainability of educators' effective feedback practices. We propose some assumptions that should underpin such a culture, and we consider the practicalities of engendering this cultural shift within modern higher education.

Innovation in teaching ensures that education remains fit for purpose in a changing world. The model of pedagogic frailty proposes that educators may perceive innovation as risky, which may inhibit innovation, and thus reduce opportunities to update learning experiences. Within psychology, psychological literacy (the skills, knowledge and attributes acquired as outcomes of studying psychology) is becoming increasingly central to the curriculum. Educators are teaching more applied psychology, which requires new pedagogic approaches and are adopting and modelling core professional values espoused as components of psychological literacy, including evidence-based practice, ethics, and professional competence. We argue that psychology educators (and those from other disciplines) may assess the risk of innovation through the lenses of these professional values. The decision to maintain ‘safe’ practices may reflect a risk management approach, rather than frailty. We propose a model whereby frailty may depend on social context and risk in different educational circumstances. The professional values associated with psychological literacy and similar integrative disciplinary constructs, which at first seem to hinder innovation, may promote innovation which is creative and safe, and will facilitate the development of a rigorous evidence base to inform future practice. 

Anonymity in marking is a contentious issue within higher education. Conflicting research findings have identified issues surrounding gender bias, ethnicity bias and fairness in marking. However, the effects of anonymity upon feedback mechanisms have not been systematically explored. This study sought to understand the effects of anonymous marking and feedback upon students’ perceptions of its potential for future learning and relationship building with their lecturers. First year United Kingdom undergraduate business, politics, pharmacy and french students experienced anonymous and non-anonymous marking of coursework across different modules. Student performance data were collected, and a survey was administered following the completion of their modules. Results revealed that anonymous marking did not seem to advantage or disadvantage particular groups of students in terms of grade outcome. There was no significant difference in perceptions of fairness according to whether or not marking was anonymous. Furthermore, the results suggest that anonymous marking might undermine the learning potential of feedback, and minimise the strength of the relationship between lecturers and students, which may minimise the role of dialogue in the feedback process.

People frequently receive performance feedback that describes how well they achieved in the past, and how they could improve in future. In educational contexts, future-oriented (directive) feedback is often argued to be more valuable to learners than past-oriented (evaluative) feedback; critically, prior research led us to predict that it should also be better remembered. We tested this prediction in six experiments. Subjects read written feedback containing evaluative and directive comments, which supposedly related to essays they had previously written (Experiments 1–2), or to essays another person had written (Experiments 3–6). Subjects then tried to reproduce the feedback from memory after a short delay. In all six experiments, the data strongly revealed the opposite effect to the one we predicted: despite only small differences in wording, evaluative feedback was in fact recalled consistently better than directive feedback. Furthermore, even when adult subjects did recall directive feedback, they frequently misremembered it in an evaluative style. These findings appear at odds with the position that being oriented toward the future is advantageous to memory. They also raise important questions about the possible behavioral effects and generalizability of such biases, in terms of students’ academic performance.

To date little is known about the experiences of girls with autism, or how they live with and manage their autism. This qualitative study explored experiences of learning, friendships and bullying of girls with autism. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 girls with autism, aged 11–17 years, and one parent of each girl. Thematic analysis identified key themes relating to motivation to have friends, challenges for girls with autism and the notion that many girls tend to mask their autism, which had both positive and negative consequences. Overall, the girls were motivated to have friends, but often encountered social difficulties and were sometimes targeted for bullying. Findings pointed to the need for interventions such as staff training and programmes to support the social interaction of girls with autism based on their specific perceptions of friendship.

Understanding how students engage with assessment feedback is a key concern of higher education professionals. Research commonly represents the perspectives of students and academic staff, yet little consideration is given to the role of learning development staff, despite these individuals supporting students when interpreting and implementing feedback. We report the findings from interviews with learning developers working in a UK University, exploring their insights into the barriers students confront when engaging with feedback, and into the role of learning developers within the feedback landscape. This study suggests that, while many challenges exist for staff and students in the context of assessment feedback, learning development professionals are able to provide a meaningful source of guidance, in partnership with academic staff, and are able to promote students’ development through dialogic interactions. Hitherto these interactions have not been fully explored, yet they provide powerful insight into the hidden processes of feedback recipience.

In recent years, there have been calls in the literature for the dominant model of feedback to shift away from the transmission of comments from marker to student, towards a more dialogic focus on student engagement and the impact of feedback on student learning. In the present study, we sought to gain insight into the extent to which such a shift is evident in practice, and how practice is shaped by national and disciplinary cultures. A total of 688 higher education staff from the UK and Australia completed a survey, in which we collected data pertaining to key influences on the design of feedback, and the extent to which emphasis is placed on student action following feedback. Our respondents reported that formal learning and development opportunities have less influence on feedback practice than informal learning and development, and prior experience. Australian respondents placed greater emphasis on student action following feedback than their counterparts in the UK, and were also more likely than UK respondents to judge the effectiveness of feedback by seeking evidence of its impact on student learning. We contextualise these findings within the context of disciplinary and career stage differences in our data. By demonstrating international differences in the adoption of learning-focused feedback practices, the findings indicate directions for the advancement of feedback research and practice in contemporary higher education.

In this study, members of a higher education department explore their research activity and how it influences their practice as academic developers in a research-led institution. While the research activities of the team members appear diverse, they are all underpinned by a shared set of professional values to provide an anchor for these activities. Research-as-pedagogy and the relationship between the discourses of research and teaching are explored using Bernstein’s knowledge structures. The authors conclude that differences in research focus (horizontal discourse) provide dynamism across a department and that stability is provided through the underpinning core values inherent in the vertical discourse.

Children with autism are more likely to be socially excluded than their neurotypical peers. Since the majority of children with autism attend mainstream schools, interventions are needed to improve the attitudes and behaviours of their peers. Many studies highlight the influence of contact on positive attitudes and reduced discrimination. Group music-making provides an ideal opportunity for positive contact to occur in the classroom. This study evaluated the impact of music-based contact with autistic peers on the attitudes, emotions and behaviours of neurotypical children. Changes in those with autism were also assessed. Neurotypical participants (n = 55) aged 10–11 years took part in an 11-week music programme designed to increase social interaction, which either did or did not include contact with autistic children (n = 10). Measures of attitudes, emotions and behaviours were assessed at baseline and follow-up. In response to a hypothetical scenario depicting social exclusion of a child with autism, neurotypical participants in the contact group showed a greater increase in prosocial emotions and a greater decrease in tendency to be a victim than those in the no-contact group. Participants with autism also showed a 19.7% decrease in victimisation. Implications of group music-making for tackling social exclusion of children with autism are discussed.

If little care is taken when establishing clear assessment requirements, there is the potential for spoon-feeding. However, in this conceptual article we argue that transparency in assessment is essential to providing equality of opportunity and promoting students’ self-regulatory capacity. We begin by showing how a research-informed inclusive pedagogy, the EAT Framework, can be used to improve assessment practices to ensure that the purposes, processes, and requirements of assessment are clear and explicit to students. The EAT Framework foregrounds how students’ and teachers’ conceptions of learning (i.e., whether one has a transactional or transformative conception of learning within a specific context) impact assessment practices. In this article, we highlight the importance of being explicit in promoting access to learning, and in referencing the EAT Framework, the importance of developing transformative rather than transactional approaches to being explicit. Firstly, we discuss how transparency in the assessment process could lead to “criteria compliance” (Torrance, 2007, p. 282) and learner instrumentalism if a transactional approach to transparency, involving high external regulation, is used. Importantly, we highlight how explicit assessment criteria can hinder learner autonomy if paired with an over-reliance on criteria-focused ‘coaching’ from teachers. We then address how ‘being explicit with assessment’ does not constitute spoon-feeding when used to promote understanding of assessment practices, and the application of deeper approaches to learning as an integral component of an inclusive learning environment. We then provide evidence on how explicit assessment criteria allow students to self-assess as part of self-regulation, noting that explicit criteria may be more effective when drawing on a transformative approach to transparency, which acknowledges the importance of transparent and mutual student-teacher communications about assessment requirements. We conclude by providing recommendations to teachers and students about how explicit assessment criteria can be used to improve students’ learning. Through an emphasis on transparency of process, clarity of roles, and explication of what constitutes quality within a specific discipline, underpinned by a transformative approach, students and teachers should be better equipped to self-manage their own learning and teaching.

Developing the requisite skills for engaging proactively with feedback is crucial for academic success. This paper reports data concerning the perceived usefulness of the Developing Engagement with Feedback Toolkit (DEFT) in supporting the development of students' feedback literacy skills. In Study 1, student participants were surveyed about their use of feedback, and their perceptions of the utility of the DEFT resources. In Study 2, students discussed the resources in focus groups. Study 3 compared students' responses on a measure of feedback literacy before and after they completed a DEFT feedback workshop. Participants perceived the DEFT favorably, and the data indicate that such resources may enhance students' general feedback literacy. However, the data raise questions about when such an intervention would be of greatest value to students, the extent to which students would or should engage voluntarily, and whether it would engage those students with the greatest need for developmental support.

Background: Most food in the United Kingdom is purchased in supermarkets, and many of these purchases are routinely tracked through supermarket loyalty card data. Using such data may be an effective way to develop remote public health interventions and to measure objectively their effectiveness at changing food purchasing behavior.

Objective: The Front-of-pack food Labels: Impact on Consumer Choice (FLICC) study is a pilot randomized controlled trial of a digital behavior change intervention. This pilot trial aimed to collect data on recruitment and retention rates and to provide estimates of effect sizes for the primary outcome (healthiness of ready meals and pizzas purchased) to inform a larger trial.

Methods: The intervention consisted of a website where participants could access tailored feedback on previous purchases of ready meals and pizzas, set goals for behavior change, and model and practice the recommended healthy shopping behavior using traffic light labels. The control consisted of Web-based information on traffic light labeling. Participants were recruited via email from a list of loyalty card holders held by the participating supermarket. All food and drink purchases for the participants for the 6 months before recruitment, during the 6-week intervention period, and during a 12-week washout period were transferred to the research team by the participating supermarket. Healthiness of ready meals and pizzas was measured using a predeveloped scale based solely on the traffic light colors on the foods. Questionnaires were completed at recruitment, end of the intervention, and end of washout to estimate the effect of the intervention on variables that mediate behavior change (eg, belief and intention formation).

Results: We recruited 496 participants from an initial email to 50,000 people. Only 3 people withdrew from the study, and purchase data were received for all other participants. A total of 208 participants completed all 3 questionnaires. There was no difference in the healthiness of purchased ready meals and pizzas between the intervention and control arms either during the intervention period (P=.32) or at washout (P=.59).

Conclusions: Although the FLICC study did not find evidence of an impact of the intervention on food purchasing behavior, the unique methods used in this pilot trial are informative for future studies that plan to use supermarket loyalty card data in collaboration with supermarket partners. The experience of the trial showcases the possibilities and challenges associated with the use of loyalty card data in public health research.

Students as partners (SaP) practices are emerging in today’s universities as a means to offer a more participative agenda, and to transform institutional cultures within an increasingly economically driven higher education context. This study contributes to understandings of partnership approaches, which largely still remain under-theorised, through exploring the conceptualisation of SaP by institutional leaders, staff, and students. Drawing on data from concept map-mediated interviews, this article offers a counterview to recent studies that have depicted staff understandings of SaP to be firmly located within a neoliberal discourse. Rather, our interviews portray surprising overlaps within students’ and leaders’ conceptualisations of SaP, depicting recurrent themes of communication, dialogue, community, and enabling students to escape neoliberal constructions: to become ‘more than customers’. This article ends with a consideration of how investigating the ways in which students and staff conceptualise SaP can be valuable, as partnership approaches become further prioritised in institutional strategies.

The higher education sector is undergoing considerable changes to its working conditions. From regular scrutiny of individual research and teaching quality, audits of individual academic performance, to growing expectations arising from the culture of ‘student experience’, it is widely recognised that higher education is a turbulent sector. Amongst Early Career Academics (ECAs), initial transitions into this sector of work can have considerable consequences for career development and willingness to remain within the higher education profession. Drawing on a mixed-mode survey exploring the experience of UK-based ECAs, we highlight distinct intrapersonal and experiential factors which relate to variations in the perceived potential for career development and wellbeing. The data suggest that it is not just situational factors such as the departmental environment and job security that relate to the ‘imagined futures’ of ECAs; it is also important to gain a deeper understanding of how intrapersonal dimensions, such as an individual’s personality, shape the experience of the early stages of an academic career. Our qualitative data shed further light on the experiences that can influence the job satisfaction of ECAs. The findings are discussed in the context of a growing body of international research on ECAs, and the rapidly changing Higher Education sector in the UK.

Decades of research indicate that peer interaction, where individuals discuss or work on a task collaboratively, may be beneficial children’s and adolescents’ learning. Yet we do not know which features of interaction may be related to learning from peer interaction. This meta-analysis examined results from 62 articles with 71 studies into peer interaction, involving a total of 7,103 participants aged 4 to 18 years. Peer interaction was effective in promoting learning in comparison with other types of learning conditions, Hedges' g = 0.40, 95% CI [0.27, 0.54], p < .0001, across different gender and age groups. In contrast, however, peer interaction was not more effective than child-adult dyadic interaction. Moderator analyses also indicated that peer interaction is more effective when children are specifically instructed to reach consensus than when they are not. Findings extend theoretical considerations by teasing apart the processes through which children learn from peer interactions and offer practical implications for the effective use of peer interaction techniques in the classroom.

While feedback is a key facilitator of learning, researchers have yet to determine the ideal feedback process for optimal performance in learners. The current study investigates the combined effects of ease of decoding, and utility of feedback during learning. Accuracy and rate of learning were recorded alongside changes to the feedback related negativity (FRN), an event‐related potential (ERP) elicited by feedback stimuli. This study investigates the FRN within the context of future‐focused directive feedback (DF), in addition to past‐focused evaluative feedback (EF) typically seen in the neuroscience literature. Results indicate a main effect of utility together with an interaction with ease of decoding on the accuracy data, but only the main effect of utility on learning rate. DF produced an FRN, like EF, which was then larger during high‐utility feedback, specifically following negative EF or when hard‐to‐decode. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

The emerging literature related to feedback literacy has hitherto focused primarily on students’ engagement with feedback, and yet an analysis of academics’ feedback literacy is also of interest to those seeking to understand effective strategies to engage with feedback. Data from concept map-mediated interviews and reflections, with a team of six colleagues, surface academics’ responses to receiving critical feedback via scholarly peer review. Our findings reveal that feedback can be visceral and affecting, but that academics employ a number of strategies to engage with this process. This process can lead to actions that are both instrumental, enabling academics to more effectively ‘play the game’ of publication, as well as to learning that is more positively and holistically developmental. This study thus aims to open up a dialogue with colleagues internationally about the role of feedback literacy, for both academics and students. By openly sharing our own experiences we seek to normalise the difficulties academics routinely experience when engaging with critical feedback, to share the learning and strategies which can result from peer review feedback, and to explore how academics may occupy a comparable role to students who also receive evaluation of their work. 

Feedback can rarely enhance learning unless it is used; however, few studies have examined individual differences in students’ engagement with feedback. The present study explored a) the extent to which personality variables and achievement goal orientation are associated with students’ self-reported use of feedback; and b) whether beliefs about feedback (utility, accountability, self-efficacy, and volition to implement feedback) mediate these associations. Students aged 16-18 (N = 746) completed self-report measures assessing each of these constructs. Self-reported feedback use was greater among students who scored high in mastery approach goals, performance approach goals, and conscientiousness. Controlling for academic achievement (which correlated weakly with self-reported feedback use), all of these associations were mediated by self-efficacy, and a subset of the associations were also mediated by the perceived utility of feedback and volition to implement feedback. Supporting students to feel competent in using feedback should be a key priority for interventions.

This article employs a new approach to understanding student transition. This area of theory and practice has developed huge global significance. However, transition as a concept is under-theorised, and a discourse that reiterates stereotypic narratives of students’ normative and linear trajectories can be seen to permeate the field. Drawing on data collected using story completion methods, together with semi-structured interviews, we examine this stereotypic discourse that surrounds stories of transition. Our data suggest that this narrative exists in tension with a more nuanced picture: one that depicts the diversity, fluidity and complexity of students’ lived experiences. In order to better understand these experiences we employ a theoretical approach that conceptualises transitions as troublesome, as rhizomatic, and as becoming. We argue that this approach offers the potential to look beyond normative narratives that surround student transition, and to celebrate students’ becomings in a more rich and generative way.

This article focuses on ‘transition’ and how it is understood within higher education. Drawing on data from concept map-mediated interviews at two institutions, we examine the conceptions of transition held by academic and professional staff, who work to support students’ learning into and through higher education. We suggest that normative understandings of transition often draw upon a grand-narrative that orchestrates and reiterates a stereotypic understanding of students’ experiences. Often this narrative involves students’ interpellation into a field of discourse where the subject is constructed as both homogeneous and in deficit: ill-prepared, lacking in independence, as vulnerable and in need of support. However, this study suggests that beneath this discourse lies a more nuanced picture: one where students’ experiences can be conceptualised as diverse and fluid. Moreover, we employ the concept of pedagogic ‘frailty’ to expose the significance of the environments and wider contexts in which students ‘transition’, and to explore the impact of systemic tensions upon students’ experiences. This article further argues that future research should shift discussions away from the deficits of students, and examine how we can make underlying environmental and systemic challenges more explicit, in order to widen our understanding and discussions of these constraints.

Recent research showed that people recall past-oriented, evaluative feedback more fully and accurately than future-oriented, directive feedback. Here we investigated whether these memory biases arise from preferential attention toward evaluative feedback during encoding. We also attempted to counter the biases via manipulations intended to focus participants on improvement. Participants received bogus evaluative and directive feedback on their writing. Before reading the feedback, some participants set goals for improvement (experiments 1 and 2), or they wrote about their past or future use of the writing skills, and/or were incentivised to improve (experiment 3); we objectively measured participants’ attention during feedback reading using eyetracking. Finally, all participants completed a recall test. We successfully replicated the preferential remembering of evaluative feedback, but found little support for an attentional explanation. Goal-setting reduced participants’ tendency to reproduce feedback in an evaluative style, but not their preferential remembering of evaluative feedback. Neither orienting participants toward their past or future use of the writing skills, nor incentivising them to improve, influenced their attention toward or memory for the feedback. These findings advance the search for a mechanism to explain people’s weaker memory for future-oriented feedback, demonstrating that attentional and improvement-oriented accounts cannot adequately explain the effect.

The concept of recipience is emerging within the literature as a useful idea to inform our understanding of student engagement with feedback. In this paper the applicability of the concept of recipience is broadened from its origins in the literature on student feedback to consider its role in developing student knowledge structures that are more receptive to development. This will promote cumulative/meaningful learning that is required to construct professional knowledge. By drawing on Legitimation Code Theory, and visualising the morphology of target knowledge structures in relation to their position on the semantic plane (of semantic gravity vs. semantic density), a fresh perspective is offered to inform student learning that can suggest ways of enhancing the quality of student learning. This is achieved by explicitly enabling the construction of a more coherent perspective of the knowledge terrain generated by complex curricula.

Students’ engagement in Extra-Curricular Activities (ECAs) can play a significant role in their development of a student identity, as well as leading to a greater sense of belonging and wellbeing. However, individual characteristics such as sociability may influence the likelihood of students engaging in ECAs. We collected mixed mode data from two online surveys to explore students’ perceptions of the impact of engagement in ECAs on their experience at university, as well as the mediating role of engagement in ECAs in the relationships between extraversion and wellbeing and sense of belonging to the University. Our data demonstrate that extraversion is positively associated with both belonging and wellbeing, and that engagement in ECAs mediates these relationships. Our qualitative data uncover further nuances in engagement with ECAs; whilst many perceived outcomes are positive, some students express regret at opportunities missed, and find it challenging to balance ECAs and their studies. Taken together, these findings indicate that not all students stand to benefit equally from engagement in ECAs. Providing a range of opportunities that are accessible to a wide range of students may promote equity in participation in ECAs.

Many policies and processes in higher education reinforce a conception of feedback as being the transmission of information, thus placing primary responsibility on educators for delivering this information ‘well’ whilst neglecting the essential responsibilities of learners. In this study 216 university educators described the responsibilities of students, and of educators themselves, in the feedback process. We analysed their responses using both content analysis and a novel linguistic analysis of the specific words used. The content analysis indicated a clear influence of transmission-based models of feedback on educators’ views, with educators seen as responsible primarily for providing comments, and students responsible primarily for processing these comments. Linguistically, educators conveyed greater certainty, and were more likely to use referents to power and positive emotion, when describing their own as opposed to students’ responsibilities. These findings underscore the necessity of a cultural shift toward responsibility-sharing in the context of feedback in higher education.

Surfacing student voices is of utmost importance in higher education institutions. However, the use of large-scale student surveys may not represent the most effective method of eliciting meaningful student perspectives. Focus groups have the potential to elicit a more authentic student voice through greater engagement with students. Furthermore, activities incorporated into these discussions may be beneficial in the higher education context. The aim of this article is to explore the use of activities in focus group discussions within a project focussed on students’ use of feedback. We draw on focus group discussion transcripts, debrief transcripts, field notes and activity artefacts to demonstrate how activities can be incorporated into focus group discussions. The findings indicate several benefits to using activities in higher education focus group discussions. As such, a framework to guide the use of activities, based on the purpose of the focus groups, is provided within the context of higher education research.

In contemporary higher education systems, the processes of assessment and feedback are often seen as coexisting activities. As a result, they have become entangled in both policy and practice, resulting in a conceptual and practical blurring of their unique purposes. In this paper, we present a critical examination of the issues created by the entanglement of assessment and feedback, arguing that it is important to ensure that the legitimate purposes of both feedback and assessment are not compromised by inappropriate conflation of the two. We situate our argument in the shifting conceptual landscape of feedback, where there is increasing emphasis on students being active players in feedback processes working with and applying information from others to future learning tasks, rather than regarding feedback as a mechanism of transmission of information by teachers. We surface and critically discuss six problems created by the entanglement of assessment and feedback: students’ focus on grades; comments justifying grades rather than support learning; feedback too late to be useful; feedback subordinated to all other processes in course design; overemphasis on documentation of feedback; and the downgrading of feedback created by requirements for anonymous marking. We then propose a series of strategies for preserving the learning function of feedback, through models that give primacy to feedback within learning cycles. We conclude by offering suggestions for research and practice that seek to engage with the challenges created by the entanglement of assessment and feedback, and that maintain the unique purposes of assessment and feedback.

Research shows that the attitudes of children and adolescents towards bullying are influenced by the school environment and their peer groups. Given the increased vulnerability to bullying for autistic children, this study explored whether neurotypical children’s attitudes towards bullying and autism varied according to school exposure and personal contact with autistic people. Survey data were collected at the beginning and end of the school year from 775 children aged 11–12 years, from six schools: three with specialist centres for autism and three without. Participants read vignettes depicting bullying scenarios then completed measures of their attitudes in relation to the vignette and towards autism. Children from centre schools showed a greater increase in prosocial emotions towards bullying. For children from non-centre schools, an interaction showed a decrease in prosocial emotions except in response to social exclusion of an autistic child. Increases in personal contact showed a greater increase in positive attitudes towards autistic people. Explanations draw on theories of inter-group contact and social-moral reasoning. Results highlight the need for contact both at a personal level and through attending a school with an inclusive autism provision to increase understanding, improve attitudes towards autism and reduce tolerance for bullying.

Feedback processes are difficult to manage, and the accumulated frustrations of teachers and students inhibit the learning potential of feedback. In this conceptual paper, challenges to the development of effective feedback processes are reviewed and a new framework for teacher feedback literacy is proposed. The framework comprises three dimensions: a design dimension focuses on designing feedback processes for student uptake and enabling student evaluative judgment; a relational dimension represents the interpersonal side of feedback exchanges; and a pragmatic dimension addresses how teachers manage the compromises inherent in disciplinary and institutional feedback practices. Implications discuss the need for partnership approaches to feedback predicated on shared responsibilities between teachers and students, and the interplay between teacher and student feedback literacy. Key recommendations for practice are suggested within the design, relational and pragmatic dimensions. Avenues for further research are proposed, including how teacher and student feedback literacy might be developed in tandem.

There is growing recognition that socio-constructivist representations of feedback processes, where students build their own understanding through engaging with and discussing feedback information, are more appropriate than cognitivist transmission-oriented models. In parallel, practice has developed away from hard-copy handwritten or typed feedback comments, towards the provision of e-feedback in Learning Management Systems (LMS). Through thematic analysis of activity-oriented focus groups with 33 Undergraduate students, the present study aimed to explore 1) students’ experience of engaging with feedback in the LMS; 2) barriers to students’ engagement; and 3) students’ perceptions of the potential for technology to ameliorate these barriers. The data reveal particular barriers to engagement created by the LMS environment; grades and feedback are commonly separated spatially, limiting attention to the latter. Additionally, the distributed location of feedback from different tasks limits synthesis of feedback. Nevertheless, students perceived that the LMS environment affords opportunities for addressing such challenges, particularly in relation to the potential for a LMS tool to synthesise feedback information across modules, and to direct students to resources to develop their skills.  The findings are discussed in the context of cycles of engagement with feedback, and implications for the principled use of technology in feedback processes are discussed.

There is increasing awareness of the importance of working with younger children in Widening Participation initiatives. Whilst typical evaluation methods such as feedback questionnaires may be appropriate for collating evidence of the impact of initiatives with older children and teenagers, these tools are less appropriate for younger children. In the context of the evaluation of a campus-based creative writing programme for 9- to 10-year-old children, this paper discusses the utility of creative approaches to evaluation. Prior to and following their visit to the University campus, children completed a worksheet to gain their perspectives of University through sentence completion, comparison, and drawing tasks. These methods provide insight into how children’s perspectives are shaped by visiting a University campus, as well as differences between those who do and do not know someone who has attended University. We present snapshots of the evaluation data and discuss the implications for evaluation of widening participation initiatives with young children.

When developing meaningful curricula institutions must engage with the desired disciplinary attributes of their graduates. Successfully employed in several areas, including psychology and chemistry, disciplinary literacies provide structure for the development of core competencies- pursuing progressive education. To this end, we have sought to develop a comprehensive blueprint of a graduate biochemist, providing detailed insight into the development of skills in the context of disciplinary knowledge. The Biochemical Literacy Framework (BCLF) aspires to encourage innovative course design in both the biochemical field and beyond through stimulating discussion among individuals developing undergraduate biochemistry degree courses based on pedagogical best practice. Here, we examine the concept of biochemical
literacy aiming to start answering the question: what must individuals do and know to approach and transform ideas in the context of the biochemical sciences? The BCLF began with the guidance published by relevant learned societies - including the RSB, the Biochemistry Society, the AMBMB, and the QAA, before considering relevant pedagogical literature. We propose that biochemical literacy is comprised of seven key skills: critical thinking, self-management, communication, information literacy, visual literacy, practical skills, and content knowledge. Together these form a dynamic, highly interconnected, and interrelated meta-literacy supporting the use of evidence-based, robust learning techniques. The Biochemical Literacy Framework is intended to form the foundation for discussion between colleagues, in addition to forming the groundwork for both pragmatic and exploratory future studies into facilitating and further defining biochemical literacy.

In this chapter, we view technology-enhanced feedback (specifically audio, video and screencast feedback) through the lens of Carless’s (High Educ 69(6):963–976, 2015) ‘old’ versus ‘new’ paradigm postulates. We explore the potential factors that may facilitate audio, video and screencast feedback promoting dialogue in a new paradigm approach to feedback. We identify three ‘dilemmas’ that may need to be addressed to facilitate such dialogue. In exploring this territory, we draw upon examples from the research literature and how this may inform our developing understanding of feedback dialogue within the digital world.

Feedback literacy is an important graduate attribute that supports students’ future work capacities. This study aimed to develop a framework through which discipline-specific feedback literacies, as a set of socially-situated skills, can be developed within core curricula. The framework is developed through: a content analysis of National Qualifications Frameworks from six countries and UK Subject Benchmark Statements for multiple disciplines; analysis of indicative subject content for a range of disciplines; and consultation with subject-matter experts. Whilst most of the benchmark statements incorporate the development of feedback literacy skills related to ‘making judgements’, attributes relating to ‘appreciating feedback’ and ‘taking action based on feedback’ are less prevalent. Skills related to ‘managing the affective challenges of feedback’ are most prevalent in documentation for applied disciplines. The resulting empirically-guided curriculum design framework showcases how integrating the development of discipline-specific feedback literacies can be enacted through authentic learning activities and assessment tasks. In terms of implications for practice, the framework represents in concrete terms how discipline-specific feedback literacies can be integrated within higher education curricula. The findings also have implications for policy: by positioning discipline-specific feedback literacies as graduate outcomes, we believe they should be integrated within national qualifications frameworks as crucial skills to be developed through higher education courses. Finally, from a theoretical perspective, we advance conceptions of feedback literacy through a sociocultural approach and propose new directions for research that seek to reconceptualise a singular concept of feedback literacy as multiple feedback literacies that unfold in distinctive ways across disciplines.

In the context of a marketised higher education system, meaningful interpersonal connections remain of paramount importance to many students. Using a story-completion method, we examine how relationships impact upon students’ experiences of higher education, and explore the importance of relational pedagogies. We draw upon data from a longitudinal study in which students were invited to complete stories that enabled them to draw upon experiences and discourses surrounding relationships at university. Following the story completion stage, participants reflected on the stories they had written and discussed their experiences during semi-structured interviews. Our data suggest that meaningful connections are crucial to accessing support. However, most notable within the data are two outstanding themes that recur within the students’ stories and interviews: the importance of achieving authentic connections with others, and the experience of alienation when interactions are not genuine, or when communication breaks down. We explore these themes and examine their significance in relation to concepts of caring, and mattering, within higher education, and we discuss the implications for both staff and institutions.

A significant challenge currently facing the higher education sector is how to address differential student outcomes in terms of attainment and continuation gaps at various stages of students’ transitions. Worryingly, there appears to be a ‘deficit’ discourse among some university staff in which differential outcomes are perceived to be due to student deficiencies. This may be exacerbated by institutional analyses placing an over-emphasis on the presence of the gaps rather than the causes. The purpose of this primer is to provide advice about how institutions can carry out far more nuanced analyses of their institutional data without requiring specialist software or expertise. Drawing on a multi-level framework for explaining differential outcomes, we begin with guidance for gathering quantitative data on explanatory factors for attainment and continuation gaps, largely by linking sources of internal data that have not previously been connected. Using illustrative examples, we then provide tutorials for how to model explanatory factors employing IBM SPSS Statistics (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) to perform and interpret regression and meta-regression analyses of individual- and group-level (aggregated) student data, combined with data on micro- and meso-level factors. We propose that university staff with strategic responsibilities could use these approaches with their institutional data, and the findings could then inform the design of context-specific interventions that focus on changing practices associated with gaps. In doing so, institutions could enhance the evidence-base, raise awareness, and further ‘embed the agenda’ when it to comes to understanding potential reasons for differential student outcomes during educational transitions.

Feedback is invaluable for learning, yet people frequently fail to remember their feedback. Recent studies have demonstrated that people are better at recalling evaluative, past-oriented feedback than directive, future-oriented feedback. This paper tests one possible explanation: namely, that people neglect to search their memory for directive information they have encoded. Participants (total N = 759), attempted to recall feedback they had read about their own (Experiment 1) or another person’s performance (Experiments 2A-4). We attempted to foster recall of directive feedback via a structured recall task (Experiments 1-2B) or a perspective-taking instruction (Experiment 3). All experiments replicated the preferential recall of evaluative feedback, but our manipulations did not moderate this bias. Experiment 4 replicated the bias using ‘non-educational’ feedback, and provided tentative indications that it might not translate beyond the feedback domain. The data suggest that selective retrieval processes are not responsible for people’s poor recall of directive feedback.

Feedback is a term used so frequently that it is commonly taken that there is a shared view about what it means. However, in recent years, the notion of feedback as simply the provision of information to students about their work has been substantially challenged and learning-centred views have been articulated. This paper employs a corpus linguistics approach to analyse the use of the term ‘feedback’ in research articles published in key higher education journals on the topic over two five-year periods: 2009 to 2013 and 2015 to 2019. Analysis focused on the most common noun modifiers of ‘feedback’ and nouns modified by ‘feedback’; verbs with ‘feedback’ as the object, possessors of ‘feedback’, and prepositions representing an action or concept on or with ‘feedback’. Whilst the analysis demonstrated that transmission-focused conceptions dominate publications on feedback, linguistic signifiers of a shift over time in representation of feedback away from a transmission-focus towards a learning-focus were evident within each grammatical relation category. The data indicate that the term ‘feedback’ is used by different authors to refer to very different representations of the concept, and the paper proposes that greater clarity in the representation of feedback is needed.

Participatory approaches are receiving renewed attention in the ‘students as partners’ (SaP) and ‘feedback’ discourse communities respectively. SaP scholars tend to focus on pedagogy (pedagogical partnerships) and curriculum (co-creation). Assessment and feedback, as connective and relational practices that bridge these two domains, receive less empirical and conceptual attention as partnership praxis. Both share commitments to participatory forms of democratic education and critical pedagogy. This conceptual article transgresses artificial boundaries often constructed between discourse communities, through bringing into conversation established scholars from both. In doing so, we illuminate two points of intersection: dialogue and trust. First, speaking back to the SaP community, we urge greater recognition of feedback practices as partnership praxis entangled with both pedagogical and curricular praxis. Second, speaking back to the feedback community, we advocate for a foregrounding and richer theorisations of learner-teacher power dynamics in feedback praxis. We conclude by considering the implications for both discourse communities.

The increasing prominence of neoliberal agendas in international higher education has led to greater weight being ascribed to student satisfaction, and the national surveys through which students evaluate courses of study. In this article, we focus on the evaluation of feedback processes, as an area where there have been recent theoretical and conceptual shifts in what feedback is taken to mean. Rather than the transmission of information from teacher to student, greater recognition of the fundamental role of the learner in seeking, generating, and using feedback is evident in recent international literature. Through an analysis of the framing of survey items from 10 national student satisfaction surveys (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, UK, and USA), we seek to question what conceptions or models of feedback are conveyed through survey items, and how such framing might shape perceptions and practice. Primarily, the surveys promote an outdated view of feedback as information transmitted from teacher to student in a timely and specific manner, largely ignoring the role of the student in learning from/with feedback processes. Widespread and meaningful change in the ways in which feedback is represented in research, policy, and practice requires a critical review of the positioning of students in key artefacts such as evaluation surveys. We conclude with recommendations for practice by proposing amended survey items that are more consistent with contemporary theoretical conceptions of feedback.

Emerging research and examples from practice support the idea of feedback literacies as sociomaterial competencies. Such a conception highlights the contextual and social aspect of literacies but neglects their cultural aspect. Reality in higher education sees an increasingly international student body, particularly at postgraduate levels. International postgraduate students transitioning to new systems are likely to have developed diverse ‘literacies’ within their previous institutional cultures. Using narrative inquiry, this study collected in-depth stories of the assessment and feedback experiences of 10 international postgraduate taught students before and after transitioning to postgraduate education at a UK institution. The study gives accounts of the ways in which the students recognised, processed, and utilised feedback. A combination of narrative and thematic analysis indicated a clear influence of culture- and context-shaped histories upon students’ feedback literacies. Such diverse literacies do not mirror the UK ‘norm’ for feedback literacy and do not initially support students in making effective use of feedback in the new environment. These findings highlight that shifting our conceptualisation of feedback literacies from a universal ‘model’ universal to context- and culture-specific is necessary, as is embedding diversity and intercultural interactions within the development of intercultural feedback literacies.

In education systems across the world, teachers are under increasing quality assurance scrutiny in relation to the provision of feedback comments to students. This is particularly pertinent in higher education, where accountability arising from student dissatisfaction with feedback causes concern for institutions. Through semi-structured interviews with twenty-eight educators from a range of institution types, we investigated how educators perceive, interpret, and enact competing functions of feedback. The data demonstrate that educators often experienced professional dissonance where perceived quality assurance requirements conflicted with their own beliefs about the centrality of student learning in feedback processes. Such dissonance arose from the pressure to secure student satisfaction, and avoid complaints. The data also demonstrate that feedback does ‘double duty’ through the requirement to manage competing audiences for feedback comments. Quality enhancement of feedback processes could profitably focus less on teacher inputs and more on evidence of student response to feedback.

 The higher education literature on feedback has generally explored spoken feedback delivered on a summative written assignment.  In contrast, this study explores spoken feedback as part of the teacher – student dialogue in classroom interaction (i.e. feedback talk).  Drawing on a discourse analysis approach we identified linguistic and rhetorical indicators of feedback talk and found a number of common patterns in six seminar events. Interviews with two teachers revealed a perception that feedback was an inherent part of the teaching and learning process and the significance of feedback talk in supporting relationships. We argue that a recognition and understanding of feedback talk can support the relational dimension of feedback literacy in the micro-moments of learning and teaching. We frame our discussion of feedback talk and teacher feedback literacy within the wider context of learning and teaching and call for a more holistic perspective on feedback.

In-text comments, in the form of annotations on students’ work, are a form of feedback information that should guide students to take action. It is both the focus of in-text comments, and the ways in which they are linguistically communicated, that has the potential to impact upon how they are perceived by students. This study reports on an analysis of 2101 in-text comments added by markers to 60 summative essays from two disciplines. The majority of comments, regardless of the grade awarded, were found to be directed at the task performance, rather than relating to the level of process or self-regulation. Work awarded higher grades received fewer annotations; these essays were found to include more feedback comments expressing a positive tone, with limited opportunities for informing further development. Work awarded lower grades mainly received corrective comments, as well as comments characterised by interrogative language and words expressing risk. It is argued that the linguistic style may influence engagement with in-text comments, impacting upon students’ affective and emotional states, and their level of cognitive engagement with the feedback information. Recommendations for markers’ practices are identified, to facilitate the opportunities for engagement and action that in-text comments might afford.

In order for students to learn through the process of assessment, feedback should not merely consist of diagnostic or evaluative information transmitted from teachers to their students; rather, students should be actively involved in seeking, generating, making sense of, and applying feedback information to support their learning. In UK schools, these outcomes are increasingly being facilitated by a process called ‘Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time’, or ‘DIRT’. The premise of DIRT is that students are most likely to learn through assessment if given the opportunity within class time to reflect upon and apply feedback comments to improve their work.

This chapter explores the use of DIRT as a strategy for assessment-as-learning. We present data from a survey of teachers and a small-scale implementation of DIRT in seven different subjects in a Sixth Form College in the UK. Taken together, the findings indicate that common DIRT practices implemented by teachers support the development of key ‘recipience skills’ that facilitate learning through engagement with feedback. The findings also shed light on some of the challenges relevant to implementation of these approaches. We end by exploring the potential of DIRT as a form of assessment-as-learning, and argue for the importance of research conducted in partnership between researchers and teachers in advancing evidence-based practices in educational settings.

Feedback can be framed as a one-way transmission of information driven by educators, or as a two-way process in which students’ agentic participation is critical to success. Despite calls for a shift away from the former framing towards the latter, transmission-focused models of feedback continue to dominate practice internationally. Approaches to feedback in any given setting are likely influenced by the dominant feedback culture. The present study aimed to characterise ‘feedback cultures’ within higher education by systematically examining how feedback is framed in 134 UK universities’ (a) educational strategies and (b) Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) Provider statements. These documents serve to encapsulate each institution’s views of excellence and best-practice; nevertheless, analysis of the documents revealed a stronger focus on the transmission of feedback comments than on supporting students’ learning through feedback processes. Linguistically, students were positioned passively within the documents, as being on the receiving end of teachers’ actions, rather than actively driving their own learning through feedback. These findings inform a framework for conceptualising feedback cultures in higher education, which positions approaches to feedback design, feedback processes, and the evaluation and development of feedback on a continuum from transmission-focused to learning-focused. It is argued that strategy documents shape practice in subtle ways; in order to shift towards learning-focused feedback cultures, consideration must be given to how students’ roles and responsibilities are positioned in both policy and practice.

To explore the affective domains embedded in academic development and teacher practice, a team of academic developers was invited to consider a poem and how it reflects the emotions and feelings underpinning experiences as teachers within Higher Education. We used a method of arts-informed, collective biography to evaluate a poem to draw upon and share memories to interrogate lived experiences. Our research is framed using the lens of pedagogic frailty model to see how affective and discursive encounters are produced and impact us. We contend that collective arts-based and biographical approaches can provide alternative ways for ourselves and teachers to examine their own pedagogic frailty.

Although feedback is one of the most important instructional techniques, strong empirical research on receiving feedback is scarce in comparison to research on feedback provision. In this experimental study, we examined the influence of detailed comments and praise on student motivation and change in performance. 147 university students wrote an essay draft, received feedback (detailed comments, detailed comments and praise, or control) and revised their essay based on feedback. First, we found that students who received detailed comments showed higher motivation and greater improvement compared to their counterparts in the control group. Second, we showed that students who received praise demonstrated lower motivation and reduced improvement, compared to students who did not receive praise in addition to detailed comments. This demonstration of paradoxical effects of praise in higher education is explained in the context of the anchoring bias suggesting that praise should be used wisely.

First-year university students are confronted with a different culture of feedback than they were used to in secondary education. Since the emphasis at university is mainly on independent learning, students need to fulfil the role of a self-regulated learner and need to develop feedback  literacy  to  make  use  of  the  multitude  of  feedback opportunities. In this study, reflective logs were used to capture first-year engineering students’ most impactful feedback experiences. It was demonstrated that reflective logs are a valuable instrument to provide insight  into  students’ feedback  literacy.  Moreover,  a  significant association between the reflection level and the presence of the different feedback literacy characteristics was found. Although most of the students acknowledge the basic understandings of feedback, only about half of the reflective logs point to a more advanced use of feedback opportunities. The lack of some specific characteristics suggest that students behold a teacher-centred view of feedback. Therefore, it is important to explicitly introduce them to the contemporary learner-centred definitions of feedback so that they can recognise the variety of feedback opportunities. The study further endorses that developing reflective skills can be an important precursor to feedback literacy.

Empirical research on effective assessment feedback often falls short in demonstrating not just what works, but how and why. In this introduction to the special issue, ‘Psychological Perspectives on the Effects and Effectiveness of Assessment Feedback,’ we first synthesize the recommendations from review papers on the topic of feedback published since 2010. In multiple respects this synthesis points to a clear wish among feedback researchers: for feedback research to become more scientific. Here we endorse that view, and propose a framework of research questions that a psychological science of feedback might seek to answer. Yet we—and the authors of the diverse papers in this special issue—also illustrate a wealth of scientific research and methods, and rigorous psychological theory, that already exist to inform understanding of effective feedback. One barrier to scientific progress is that this research and theory is heavily fragmented across disciplinary ‘silos’. The papers in this special issue, which represent disparate traditions of psychological research, provide complementary insights into the problems that rigorous feedback research must surmount. We argue that a cohesive psychological science of feedback requires better dialogue between the diverse subfields, and greater use of psychological methods, measures, and theories for informing evidence-based practice.

We are a group of tertiary education-level staff who either run or are enrolled as students on a master’s in higher education module on assessment and feedback. The experience we focus on involved asynchronous co-construction of a rubric for the module’s summative assessment. There were two forms of partnership between module leaders and students being enacted: the rubric’s co-construction and development of this submission. The experience of co-constructing the rubric gave voice to the students in shaping and clarifying the module’s assessment criteria, engaging with its learning outcomes, and activating discussions around standards and inclusivity, whilst concurrently reducing assessment anxiety. It raised tensions based on the students’ dual perspectives as assessor (i.e., rubric designers) and assessee (i.e., having the rubric applied to their own work), and surrounding reaching consensus asynchronously. However, it scaffolded greater independence, motivation, critical engagement and ownership over learning and assessment processes, whilst informing the students’ future pedagogic practices.

In this article, we explore the concept of belonging and its utility as a means for understanding academics’ experiences of working in the academy. Transformative changes have reorientated academic work in recent years and continue to do so as we grapple with what it means to work and live in a post-digital, post-covid, world. We engage a collective biography methodology to highlight the embodied spatial-material assemblages in which belonging can be (un)made, the ways in which belonging may stick, slip and slide, as well how we might support colleagues to deal with the fragility and fluidity of academic work. Collectively, we sketch a portrait of the currents, spaces and relations of belonging that sit uncomfortably alongside common conceptions of belonging as linear, or as an internal, individual, emotion. This study therefore offers new possibilities for enhanced understandings of belonging as mobile, flickering and processual, that are
generative within education and beyond.