“Feedback was very helpful”: the benefits of feedback on drafts for students learning.

Abstract

This article reports on a longitudinal study with students to explore the benefits for student learning from a feedback strategy providing feedback on drafts in a first year module. Initial student evaluation, from fifty first year Religious Studies students, is explored for the short-term benefits from this approach, and reflective evaluations from forty second year students are used to consider the longer-term impact of such feedback.

The research was based around Shute’s 2008 advice that feedback was ‘useful’ if it provided students with ‘motive, opportunity and means.’ Students were motivated to act on feedback as they had the opportunity to apply their development in the next task. The detail provided in feedback provided them with the means to develop the necessary skills, and the motivation came from the opportunity to resubmit all revised tasks for summative assessment.

The aim was to help students learn how to act on feedback through the opportunity to improve their work through corrective and suggestive feedback. Students found the opportunity to correct minor errors the most useful aspect of this approach, followed by the benefit of learning how to use tutor feedback, and the insights gained from seeing exemplars from past student work.

Keywords: assessment; drafts; exemplars; feedback; formative; reiterative.