Congratulations to Dr Bianka Malecka on her graduation!

19 January 2023

Dr Bianka Malecka has completed her PhD journey with CRADLE and graduated in October 2022.

Dr Bianka Malecka’s doctoral thesis is titled ‘The role of ipsative feedback processes in developing students’ feedback literacy‘ and it was supervised by Professor Rola Ajjawi, Dr Joanna Tai and CRADLE Co-Director Alfred Deakin Professor David Boud.

We congratulate Bianka on her fantastic achievement!

Bianka’s thesis by publication comprises four papers:

• Fostering student motivation and engagement with feedback through ipsative processes,
• An empirical study of student action from ipsative design of feedback processes,
• Navigating feedback practices across learning contexts: implications for feedback literacy, and
• Eliciting, processing and enacting feedback: mechanisms for embedding feedback literacy within the curriculum.

Bianka is currently teaching direct-entry programs and is involved in the curriculum design at UNSW Global in Sydney. She is also a consultant on a teaching and research project at the UNSW Pro-Vice Chancellor Education and Student Experience Portfolio (PVCESE). Bianka is also writing chapters for two upcoming books on language teacher education and formative feedback practices.

We asked Bianka to describe her research and provide some reflections and highlights of her study experience.

My research explores how ipsative feedback processes, which refer to learner-centred feedback approaches organised across multiple tasks with similar learning outcomes, provide learners with opportunities to foster distinctive feedback literacy competencies. I argue that ipsative feedback design facilitates students’ engagement in productive feedback practices. Practices such as seeking information from teachers or peers (eliciting), making comparisons, rereading past work and feedback, forming learning goals and action plans (processing), or revising current and producing subsequent work (enacting). This contributes to enhancing learners’ knowledge of feedback practices related to specific domains and builds up their feedback histories, which span contexts and time.

I argue that ipsative feedback design facilitates students’ engagement in productive feedback practices.

The most notable highlights of my PhD journey happened at pivotal moments of my candidature. The first one was attending CRADLE’s Feedback Literacy Symposium in 2019, right after my confirmation, when I felt slightly overwhelmed by what lay ahead. Witnessing the work and co-operation of pre-eminent feedback scholars who attended the symposium motivated me to pursue my research so that one day I could contribute to their conversations by sharing my own findings.

Attending the EARLI SIG 1 and SIG 4 conference in Spain in June 2022 felt like the pinnacle of my research journey. Not only because I had just submitted my thesis for examination but also because I felt a true sense of belonging to this research community. I found many sessions relevant to my own work and was impressed by the collegiality and friendliness of the attendees (the spectacular views in Cadiz, tapas, and wine may have played a part too!). Aside from these moments, the solitary and quiet times of being “in the zone” writing, shaping, and refining ideas for my papers were also memorable.

I am excited by the opportunities to improve student and teacher feedback literacies and I want to continue my involvement in practices bringing change through teaching, research, and leadership.

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BIANKA MALECKA