3. Programmes of Study
3.5 Feedback to Students on their Work and Progress
Giving feedback to students on how well they are doing, and why, is an essential part of learning and teaching activity. Feedback enables students to assess their progress, to gauge their success in understanding and dealing with the subject matter to a required standard, and to get directions on how to improve. Giving feedback to students after assessment is a standard practice; engaging in activities that generate feedback during the teaching and learning process is a valuable practice.
All module specifications include a field that sets out all the methods of giving and generating feedback within the module. To help staff complete this field, a drop-down menu is provided containing a number of stock statements, representing a wide range of feedback practices from which the appropriate ones can be selected; there are also free-text boxes for comments or additional methods. The menu is in two sections:
- Feedback given in response to assessed work
- Developmental feedback generated through the teaching and learning process
The intention is to ensure that students’ expectations concerning feedback are managed, and that students recognise that feedback is not just written comments on assessed work.
Statements in module specifications on feedback on assessed coursework should take account of the specific requirements concerning feedback on coursework assignments in the Coursework Code of Practice.
In the case of modules assessed entirely by examination, departments are required to provide some form of generic feedback to students on the examination, and encouraged to provide the same sort of feedback in the case of modules where 50% or more of the module mark is accounted for by examination.
In all cases, Schools are required to publish deadlines for the return of assessed work and feedback to students. This will normally be three weeks from the submission deadline. In cases where the three week deadline cannot be met, a reasonable deadline will be set and communicated to all students. Schools will have mechanisms for monitoring and managing this process.
Guidance for staff on generating and giving timely, effective and adequate feedback to students can be found on the Centre for Academic Practice web site: