Closing the loop: linking assessment criteria to feedback/feedforward for students Alison Bone University of Brighton HEA conference MMU 8 May 2012

1. Closing the loop: linking assessment
criteria to feedback/feedforward for
students
Alison Bone
University of Brighton
HEA conference MMU 8 May 2012

2. Starting at the beginning….
• Welcome! Certain assumptions have been made
• Good assessment motivates students and drives
their learning
• Professional bodies may impact on how and what
you assess…..
• ….but you still have plenty of scope to try different
assessment methods to challenge and inspire your
students
• Feedback/feedforward is a crucial aspect of
(arguably) ALL assessment

3. The rationale of assessment
Learning and Teaching Assessment
Activities Intended Methods
Learning Designed to assess
learning outcomes by
Designed to meet Outcomes use of
learning outcomes clear criteria
Figure 1. Aligning learning outcomes, learning and teaching activities and their assessment. Adapted from Biggs(1999) p 27

4. Assessment for learning - formative
assessment
• To assess knowledge and understanding use
quizzes or multiple choice questions in class or
online
• To assess communication skills, referencing,
problem solving or critical analysis set small
pieces of written work.
• Identify the baseline!

5. Underpinning research
A good place to start is the REAP project
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/
elearningsfc/sfcbookletreap.pdf
• Feedback must be specific - clear guidance on what is
needed to improve and where to go for further
information (which could be reading or going online
or an appointment with you…)
• This assumes students understand the criteria in the
first place (Rust et al 2010)
• Is it worth all the effort? (Price et al 2010)
• Using exemplars is really effective as a way of making
criteria understandable (Hendry et al 2011 and 2012)

6. How can we best help to close the
loop?
• Ideally students should be required to
acknowledge the feedback so they can show they
have understood the comments given
• Tutors should be aware of earlier feedback so
they can re-enforce it if necessary
• Students often learn in module boxes and do not
transfer feedback from one tutor to another
subject

7. Peer and Group Assessment
• Undergraduates need
to see each other as a
valuable resource and
to become less reliant
on their tutor as ‘the
fount of all
knowledge’
• Peer marking develops
their understanding of
assessment criteria

8. Peer and Group Assessment
• Start early in the course – during induction
• General exercise – non-legal to start
• Main purpose of peer assessment is to ensure students
understand the marking criteria
• Peer assessment useful for providing formative
feedback in large groups
• Group assessment should not be regarded as a ‘quick
fix’ just because of large numbers.
• Small groups - ideally no more than six - can be
allocated research, writing and/or presentation tasks
• If presentations are used students can peer assess
these

9. And finally….
• Nobody likes change
• You cannot change feedback practices on your
own
• Course team needs to be involved
• Staff development is CRUCIAL (HEA can help)
• QA aspect can work for you (is the external
examiner seeing just the good stuff….?)

10. References
Biggs, J. (1999) Teaching for quality learning at university Open University Press
Hendry, G., Bromberger, N. & Armstrong, S. (2011) Constructive guidance and
feedback for learning: the usefulness of exemplars, marking sheets and different
types of feedback in a first year law subject Assessment and Evaluation in Higher
Education Vol 36(1) 1 – 11
Hendry, G., Armstrong, S. &Bromberger, N. (2012) Implementing standards-based
assessment effectively: incorporating discussion of exemplars into classroom
teaching Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education Vol 37(2) 149 - 161
Nicol, D. (2007) Principles of good assessment and feedback: Theory and practice
http://www.york.ac.uk/media/staffhome/learningandteaching/documents/keyfactors
/Principles_of_good_assessment_and_feedback.pdf
Price, M., Handley, K., Millar, J. & O’Donovan B. (2010) Feedback: all that effort, but
what is the effect? Assessment and Evaluation in Higher EducationVol 35(3) 277 –
289
Rust, C., Price, M. & O’Donovan, B. (2010) Improving Students’ Learning by
Developing their Understanding of Assessment Criteria and Processes Assessment
and Evaluation in Higher Education Vol 28(2) 147 - 164