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Fellowship Research Topics

Below is an overview of current CRADLE areas of focus and recent CRADLE publications on those topics to illustrate the potential scope of work.

Effective feedback for learning – including feedback literacy

Feedback can have a positive impact on learning, but what makes for effective feedback? Beyond participating in well-designed feedback processes, students may need to develop particular strategies in how they approach feedback so that it has an impact on their learning, now and into the future. Our other topics include feedback literacy interventions, or feedback designs, including digitally mediated feedback and peer feedback.

  • Dawson, P., Yan, Z., Lipnevich, A., Tai, J., Boud, D., & Mahoney, P. (2024). Measuring what learners do in feedback: the feedback literacy behaviour scale. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(3), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2240983

The implications of generative Artificial Intelligence for assessment and feedback in higher education

Generative artificial intelligence has disrupted previous ways of thinking about the purposes and designs of assessment and feedback in higher education. There is a need for a close study of what educators and students do in response to this.

  • Corbin, T., Dawson, P., & Liu, D. (2025). Talk is cheap: why structural assessment changes are needed for a time of GenAI. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 50(7). 1087-1097. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2025.2503964
  • Walton, J., Bearman, M., Crawford, N., Tai, J., & Boud, D. (2025). How university students work on assessment tasks with generative artificial intelligence: Matters of judgement. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2025.2570328

Assessment validity, security and integrity

As assessment has rapidly shifted online, and artificial intelligence has increased in its capabilities, many educators have expressed concerns about cheating. A range of assessment designs and technologies have been deployed in response. What is the effectiveness of those approaches at addressing cheating (if it really is cheating)? What are their potential harms and benefits?

Developing evaluative judgement

The capability to judge the quality of work of self and others is an important part of becoming a capable professional practitioner, and should be intentionally developed during university studies rather than being left up to chance. How can learners be better supported to develop the ability to make judgements about their own learning? How can it be fostered in different contexts? How does it develop over time?

  • Tai, J., Ajjawi, R., Boud, D., Dawson, P., & Panadero, E. (2018). Developing evaluative judgement: enabling students to make decisions about the quality of work. Higher Education, 76, 467–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0220-3
  • Fischer, J., Bearman, M., Boud, D., & Tai, J. (2024). How does assessment drive learning? A focus on students’ development of evaluative judgement, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(2), 233–245. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2206986

The role of the social world in feedback and assessment (e.g. culture, relationships, emotions, and power)

Beyond the cognitive, there are significant emotional, social and material influences on the way that feedback and assessment unfolds in the world, and shapes who learners might become. How might this change what learners, teachers or institutions do?

  • Bearman, M., Ajjawi, R., Castanelli, D., et al. (2023). Meaning making about performance: A comparison of two specialty feedback cultures. Medical Education, 57(11), 1010–1019. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.15118

New knowledge practices in a time of artificial intelligence

Workplaces are increasingly mediated by big data, analytics, and artificial intelligence. This has implications for universities and for learning-on-the-job. How do we navigate a world with new kinds of knowledge practices?

  • Bearman, M., & Ajjawi, R. (2023). Learning to work with the black box: Pedagogy for a world with artificial intelligence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 54, 1160–1173. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13337

Diversity and inclusion in assessment and feedback design and practice

Students with diverse backgrounds and capabilities are choosing to enrol at university. While participation rates are improving, success and retention lag behind. Assessment and feedback are implicated as key practices that influence whether student success, but how do these significant parts of university study contribute to their inclusion? Our research has explored diverse student experiences relating to assessment and feedback, and/or the affordances and limitations of current and emerging assessment designs.

  • Tai, J., Mahoney, P., Ajjawi, R., Bearman, M., Dargusch, J., Dracup, M., & Harris, L. (2023). How are examinations inclusive for students with disabilities in higher education? A sociomaterial analysis. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 48(3), 390–402. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2022.2077910
  • Ajjawi, R., Crawford, N., Bearman, M., Brett, M., Dollinger, M., & Tai, J. (2025). The house of cards: Equity-group students’ experiences of structural inequity in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 44(4), 793–807. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2025.2456819

The longer-term effects of assessment and feedback: student identities, being and becoming

Assessment and feedback are commonly portrayed as influential factors for student learning, but they also have longer-term effects beyond immediate learning outcomes. Assessment also influences students’ developing professional identities over time. How could we better understand how student identities are influenced by assessment? How could we design assessment that better considers the long-term processes of professional identity development?

Representation in and beyond assessment

The use of traditional course/unit grades in higher education has been criticised in scholarly work at least for a century. Grades have been claimed to drive student learning; they have been called inaccurate and ineffective; and they have been connected to neoliberal and performative values. More recently, there has been criticism that they don’t portray the achievement of learning outcomes and that they are inappropriately aggregated into Grade Point Averages. So far, the criticism of grading has not led to change in the representation of student achievement on a wide scale. How could we rethink how student achievement is represented?

  • Ajjawi, R., & Boud, D. (2023). Changing representations of student achievement: The need for innovation. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 61(3), 597–607. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2192513

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