CRADLE In Conversation recap: the current “landscape” of student feedback literacy research
16 December 2019
This year we had the opportunity to host a CRADLE in Conversation session in conjunction with our symposium on students’ feedback literacy. For the first time, we used YouTube livestreaming – an option we chose since our venue couldn’t really accommodate everyone that we anticipated might want to attend. It was a good decision as, since then, we’ve had over 500 views of the recording, which will remain up on YouTube. Since it’s over an hour long, we thought you might like to dip in to some shorter clips which contain the key messages in the conversation, if you’re short on time.
To get into the concept of students’ feedback literacy, we first had to cover a little about the shifts in conceptions of feedback. Phill started this off by talking conceptually about feedback:
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David Carless followed up with the practical issue around feedback, and how feedback literacy might be a solution:
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So, what is feedback literacy? David Carless helpfully described the components of feedback literacy, as outlined in his paper written with CRADLE’s David Boud:
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Anastasiya Lipnevich also reminded us of the importance of the self, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and the ability to manage emotion:
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A key to feedback literacy, though, is ensuring that students understand expectations, as David Boud outlined:
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At this point, you might be concerned that expecting students to be really participatory is a kind of ‘victim blaming’ – i.e. shifting the problem away from educators. Here’s what Elizabeth Molloy had to say about this:
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Finally, student feedback literacy isn’t just about higher education – it carries right across the continuum of education, and into work, as David Carless and Naomi Winstone discussed:
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Overall, the panel conversation really demonstrated that student feedback literacy is an emerging concept. It’s an important idea not just for higher education, but also schools, the workplace, and whatever roles we take up in life. There’s loads of work still to be done on which things are actually effective, as opposed to our best guesses. I suppose that’s why we called the event “current landscape and future horizons”: there are many potential avenues for research, including the role of emotions, self-regulated learning, the types of pedagogies which foster feedback literacy, and how feedback literacy practices might (or might not) transfer between contexts. How we address all of these remain to be seen, but we’d be interested in your ideas!
For further information on student feedback literacy, here’s a list of resources already published:
- D. Carless & D. Boud (2018) ‘The development of student feedback literacy: enabling uptake of feedback’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 43(8), pp. 1315-1325, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354
- E. Molloy, D. Boud & M. Henderson (2019) ‘Developing a learning-centred framework for feedback literacy’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2019.1667955
- C. Noble, S. Billett, L. Armit, L. Collier, J. Hilder, C. Sly & E. Molloy (2019) ‘“It’s yours to take”: generating learner feedback literacy in the workplace’, Advances in Health Sciences Education, DOI: 10.1007/s10459-019-09905-5
- C. Noble, C. Sly, L. Collier, L. Armit, J. Hilder & E. Molloy (2019) ‘Enhancing feedback literacy in the workplace: A learner-centred approach’, in S. Billett, J. Newton, G. Rogers & C. Noble (eds.) Augmenting Health and Social Care Students’ Clinical Learning Experiences, pp. 283-306. Springer Nature: Wiesbaden (Germany). DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-05560-8_13
