3
Providing actionable feedback to students
Offering feedback to students that they will find constructive, and be motivated to act upon, is often challenging. Recent research* suggests a simple format of applying the following five principles:
1. Accurate: Feedback should provide specific and correct information.
2. Relevant: Feedback should correlate to task expectations (for example Intended Learning Outcomes).
3. Accessible: Feedback is communicated in a way that the receiver can understand.
4. Timely: Feedback is given as close as possible to the submission date.
5. Actionable: Feedback provides direction without telling exactly what to do.
The first four principles are commonly known. It is the provision of actionable feedback that can give students the opportunity to think critically about their work, and apply that critical thinking in future.
We can offer actionable feedback in the form of Where to next assistance. We can craft this type of feedback by focussing
on the issue, it’s relevance (why it’s an issue or problem) and the action the student should take to address it.
Let’s break it down:
Issue:
The student is missing a citation for a key quote in their essay.
Relevance:
Responsible scholarship requires that credit is given to researchers and academics when we draw upon their ideas or research. Attributing our sources also lends our work credibility and allows readers to verify our claims.
Action:
To prompt the student to avoid plagiarism by always quoting any assertions, research or ideas they draw upon from others. They may need to review the college's referencing guide. See the example feedback to the right.
The feedback (based on the issue):
You are missing a citation for this quotation, which heavily informs the main contention of your essay. Remember that responsible scholarship requires that credit is given to researchers and academics when we draw upon their ideas or research. Attributing our sources also lends our work credibility and allows readers to verify our claims. You can avoid future plagiarism by always quoting any assertions, research, or ideas you have drawn upon from others. Consider reviewing the library’s referencing guide, which you can download from Week 1 resources on Moodle, or review the college Academic Integrity Module.
Regularly revise the feedback policy specifc to your college or campus to ensure you are familir with requirements.