Six tips on how to develop good feedback practices

Some ideas on how to address issues with feedback and improve student satisfaction.

Student satisfaction with feedback is an ongoing issue at UCL and is often reflected in low satisfaction scores in the National Student Survey (NSS) and Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES).

Here are six ideas for addressing these issues and improving student satisfaction with feedback.

The ideas help students to develop a better understanding of academic standards and assessment processes.

Remember always to consider the needs of different students when you design your feedback and assessment activities. Ensure that all activities are inclusive and accessible to all students. Please refer to our resources on inclusive education. 

1. Ensure students understand feedback and assessment standards

Organise a guided marking session at the beginning of your module. See the Guided marking toolkit.

Explain to students the different forms that feedback can take on your programme, for example: 

• feedback on practice exercises in class
• answers to queries about coursework on a forum or in live Q&A sessions
• verbal feedback in tutorials
• feedback from clients on placements etc.

Explain to students where they can find feedback on their assignments, what format it will take and when it will be available. Where possible, standardise these procedures across programmes of study and/or in the department, so students know what to expect.

Remember that student feedback should be returned to them within 20 UCL working days and where possible at least 10 UCL working days before the next related assessment. If there is a delay in releasing the feedback to students, they should be notified and told when they can expect it.

2. Ensure students get formative feedback early on in each module

Set a formative task in every module and give feedback in the first part of the module (ideally in the first four-six weeks). Remember that a formative task does not have to exactly mirror the summative task.

For the formative task, you could consider asking students to submit:

• A discussion of a couple of relevant sources they need to understand to produce their summative task
• An outline of what their summative assessment might look like
• A draft of one part of the summative assessment
• A short, annotated bibliography linked to the summative assessment
• A short recorded presentation of how they intend to approach the summative task

In some cases you can let students have a choice of formative task, so they can decide what would be most helpful to them.

Formative tasks can also be completed in class - you could, for example, set practice exercises in class (similar to part of the eventual coursework/exam) and give verbal feedback on answers/solutions.

3. Use a template to standardise marking across the programme team

An example template is available in the guide Using forms (proformas) for feedback.

4. Ensure marker feedback is of good quality

Use the Peer Dialogue Scheme to peer review markers’ feedback. Find out more in Chapter 9: Quality Review Framework of the Academic Manual (section 5).    

Form and share feedback rules with markers on modules/programmes. 

Where there are multiple markers, organise for everyone to mark and provide feedback on a small selection of scripts independently and then meet to compare and agree a style of feedback before marking. Markers can contribute to a shared bank of comments.

If you are marking many individual assessments, you might want to consider giving some kind of group/cohort feedback. This allows you to send all students some overall feedback that relates to the assessments as a whole. This can be done more quickly than individual feedback, and this might be desirable if the students’ next assessment is relatively close to the one you are currently marking. It also allows you to tailor the individual feedback more, as you don’t have to comment on what has already been discussed in the overall feedback.

5. Remember the feedback loop

When providing feedback, indicate how your suggestion will help students improve future work.

Remember that it is not always necessary to point out every single aspect that could be better – this can be overwhelming and can lead to students not engaging with the feedback. Instead, consider what two or three areas are the most important ones to improve, and support the student in focusing on these. Also remember to give some positive feedback so there is a good balance.

6. Discuss student progress and use of feedback in tutorials 

Use My Feedback to track your tutees’ feedback. Or consider adding cover sheets to assessments where students reflect on previous feedback they have had and how they have tried to action it in the current assessment.

---

This guide has been produced by UCL Arena. You are welcome to use this guide if you are from another educational facility, but you must credit UCL Arena. 

Last updated: June 2024