Assessment & Feeback

Many authors (including Nicol, 2010 and Carless, 2013) suggest that good feedback should always be a dialogue, not a monologue from tutors. Students can become very good at self-assessing their work, but usually don’t have the opportunity to fine-tune their self-assessment and need feedback to help them on their way. If we just ask: ‘try to work out what your mark or grade is?’ they’re likelyvto just guess, and then probably forget what they guessed. While some students might select a grade close to that which you gave them, studies show that ‘high achievers’ underestimate their abilities and the majority of under-achievers will overestimate their mark. Research shows (Clouder, Broughan, Jewell & Steventon, 2012) that this trend is retained across different nationalities but interestingly, students form different nationalities can also have different perspectives of their abilities. Therefore, we need to educate students about making assessment judgements against well-expressed criteria, just as we try to do when we assess their work.