Understanding the Context of Effective Assessment Feedback in Higher Education

• In Event: Statistical Methods and Quantitative Analysis in Higher Education Assessment

Abstract

Feedback practices represent a significant investment in resources and emotion for educators and students. While the research in this field largely continues to focus on designs of feedback, there is a growing recognition that the contextual factors surrounding successful practices need to be better understood. This paper reports on a large-scale mixed-methods project that identified seven cases of sustained successful feedback practices. Multiple stages of thematic analysis, case comparison and reliability checking were employed to distil 12 enabling conditions of successful practice. These conditions reaffirm the importance of feedback design, but also highlight the need for addressing staff and student capacity as well as institutional culture for feedback.

Authors

• Michael Henderson, Monash University

• Michael Phillips, Monash University

• Tracii Ryan, Monash University

• David Boud, Deakin University

• Phillip Dawson, Deakin University

• Elizabeth Molloy, University of Melbourne

• Paige Mahoney, Deakin University