Feedback in Formative Assessment

• In Event: 67.037 - Instructional Feedback: Types, Contexts, and Recommendations

Abstract

In 1996, Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi, two psychologists at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, published a remarkable review of the research conducted from 1905 to 1995 on the effects of feedback. In their conclusion, they suggested that most of the research that had been conducted into feedback had shed little light on how to make feedback more effective because more attention had been given to whether, rather than how, feedback worked, and most of the studies had focused on the short-term effects of feedback, taking little account of whether the effects would be sustained over time.
In this presentation, I review the history of feedback research, and suggest that feedback research will be more effective if this research is located within a wider theoretical framework, taking more account of both micro- and macro- features of learning. Specifically, feedback research is likely to be more effective if it places greater attention on the cognitive processes that are involved in learning (the micro-level) and on the social situations within which feedback is given and received (the macro-level). I propose that feedback interventions need to take greater account of the crucial difference between learning and performance that has been a key concept in memory research for decades, and specifically, that feedback interventions should be designed so as to maximize the impact on storage strength, rather than focusing on retrieval strength as is so often the case.
I also suggest that, for work with teachers, it is helpful to locate feedback within a wider theoretical frame that takes into account the different roles of teachers, learners, and their peers. In particular, I suggest that by defining formative assessment inclusively, focusing on the extent to which assessment-elicited evidence is used to improve educational decisions, we can place feedback at the heart of effective formative assessment in a way that supports teachers in harnessing the power of feedback to improve learning.

Author

• Dylan Wiliam, Institute of Education - London