Learning, Feedback and Community: My reflections from HERDSA 2026
In this post we hear from CRADLE PhD student Michelle Pedlow about her experience at the HERDSA 2026 conference in Singapore. This was Michelle’s first HERDSA conference and first conference as a CRADLE PhD student. Michelle is exploring feedback as a longitudinal interpretive process.
Some conferences change what you know. Others change how you think. My first HERDSA conference did both.
Although I’ve attended many conferences throughout my career, HERDSA 2026 in Singapore was my first opportunity to experience the HERDSA community. I attended as an academic from the University of Western Australia, presenting two pieces of scholarship: one exploring programmatic assessment and educational innovation, and another with my colleague, Dr Justine Maldon, examining how student reflection can support ethical engagement with generative AI (GenAI).
Yet, despite presenting my own work, I found myself experiencing the conference through a second lens – that of a first-year PhD student at CRADLE. And that second lens changed everything.
Rather than selecting sessions solely because they aligned with my professional role, I became a sponge, absorbing ideas, theories and methodologies that connected with my doctoral research. My PhD explores how students interpret and make sense of feedback across time, so I naturally gravitated towards presentations on feedback, evaluative judgement and learning. Every session became an opportunity to refine my thinking, challenge my assumptions and discover new questions.
That was precisely why attending the Showcase presentations by fellow CRADLE PhD candidates Ameena Payne and Pearl (Jueun) Kang became a priority. Beyond supporting colleagues, I knew their research intersected with my own research. It was especially exciting to see their work recognised by the HERDSA community, with Ameena awarded Best Student Showcase Presentation and Pearl named Runner-up. What I didn’t expect was how naturally our projects would complement one another.
Although our projects ask different questions, I found myself seeing them as pieces of a much larger conversation about learning. Ameena explores feedback as a lived experience. My research considers how students make sense of feedback over time. Pearl investigates how learners develop the evaluative judgement needed to recognise quality and act on feedback. Together, our work highlights different aspects of the same learning journey – from experiencing feedback, to making sense of it, to developing the judgement needed to use it well.
Feedback as lived experience
Ameena’s presentation, Exploring feedback complexity through the lived experiences of international postgraduate students in Australia, was a powerful reminder that feedback is far more complex than we often assume.
Her phenomenological study foregrounded students’ lived experiences and the findings highlighted feedback as recursive, negotiated and unfolding across time, shaped by cultural transitions, competing priorities and the realities of postgraduate study. The presentation challenged us to think beyond individual assessment tasks and instead consider how feedback becomes part of students’ broader educational journeys.
As someone researching how learners construct meaning from feedback over time, I found myself scribbling notes throughout the presentation. It reinforced an idea that sits at the heart of my own work: feedback is something students revisit, reinterpret and carry forward as they continue learning. Watching Ameena receive the HERDSA Best Student Showcase Presentation Award was a wonderful moment. The recognition felt thoroughly deserved, reflecting both the quality of the research and the care with which it was communicated.
Ameena Payne with HERDSA President, Professor Christy Collis (Source: HERDSA LinkedIn)
Evaluative judgement as a lifelong capability
Pearl’s presentation, How can we help students develop evaluative judgement? A scoping review of pedagogical approaches, was another highlight of the conference.
In many ways, it felt like a refreshing change of pace. While so many sessions explored the implications of GenAI, Pearl asked a more fundamental question:
How do students actually develop evaluative judgement?
Her scoping review synthesised 38 empirical studies exploring pedagogical approaches to developing evaluative judgement. While the literature identified many promising teaching strategies, it also highlighted an important gap. We still know surprisingly little about what students actually do as evaluative judgement develops over time. Much of the literature focuses on how educators design learning experiences, yet comparatively little explains how learners themselves come to recognise quality, weigh evidence, make decisions and refine these capabilities.
As GenAI becomes increasingly embedded in higher education, students are increasingly evaluating AI-generated ideas, evidence, arguments and feedback. Understanding how learners develop evaluative judgement may become one of the defining educational questions of the coming decade, making Pearl’s research both timely and significant.
It was fantastic to see Pearl recognised as Runner-up Best Student Showcase Presentation, and I’m excited to see this work continue to develop.
Pearl (Jueun) Kang with HERDSA President, Professor Christy Collis (Source: HERDSA LinkedIn)
More than awards
One of the things I came to appreciate during my first HERDSA conference is that conferences are about far more than presenting research.
Every presentation represents months – often years – of reading, questioning, refining ideas and occasionally wondering whether you’re asking the right questions at all. Standing in front of a room full of peers and sharing that work takes courage.
That is what made seeing Ameena and Pearl recognised in the Student Showcase so special. Their awards celebrated two outstanding pieces of research, but they also reflected the quality, care and thoughtfulness they brought to their research presentations. Both tackled important educational questions with rigour and clarity, and it was wonderful to see that recognised by the HERDSA community.
As a first-year PhD student, I also found their success incredibly encouraging. It offered a glimpse of what is possible through curiosity, persistence and a willingness to ask meaningful questions. More importantly, it highlighted the kid of scholarly community I have joined at CRADLE – one where ideas are shared generously, thoughtful conversations are encouraged, and colleagues genuinely celebrate one another’s achievements.
Conferences are where ideas are shared, challenged and refined. They are also where research communities are built. Some of the most valuable conversations happen over coffee between sessions, in the audience during question time, or afterwards when someone says, “Your work made me think differently about my own.” Those moments remind us that research is rarely a solitary endeavour; it grows through dialogue, curiosity and generosity.
Congratulations again to Ameena and Pearl on their well-deserved recognition. Your success was a highlight of my first HERDSA conference, and I look forward to seeing how your research continues to shape conversations about learning, feedback and higher education.
About Michelle
Michelle is examining how students make sense of and use feedback across a higher education program over time. Michelle also works full-time in curriculum strategy, educational innovation, and assessment design at the University of Western Australia.
About Ameena Payne
Ameena’s project explores how social capital informs feedback seeking, interpretation and practice. Ameena hails from Chicago, USA. She learned from her elders the paradoxical role educational institutions played in both suppressing and organising for revolution; this knowing has deeply influenced her academic positionality.
About Pearl Kang
Pearl is focused on students’ evaluative judgement processes, and her research explores challenges students encounter, particularly in the form of heuristics and biases that may potentially inhibit judgement practices. She gained her Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language and has experience in English instruction, translation and interpretation, political research, and media programming.
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