The student population is diverse, and as such disability, neurodiversity, caring responsibilities, cultural and religious backgrounds, prior experience and learning preferences will affect individual learning experiences and ways in which students:
- Perceive feedback
- Access feedback
- Value feedback
- Use feedback
It is therefore helpful to consider these diverse backgrounds to guide ways in which you can consider inclusive approaches to provide meaningful and inclusive feedback for students.
Anonymous marking practice means it is not possible to identify the individual needs of students, and particularly those of disabled students who may experience specific challenges when accessing feedback. Some specific information and resources can give a broad understanding of the barriers and challenges disabled students can experience but we acknowledge that this has its limitations. What may be more valuable is how we can consider co-creation opportunities that allow students to tell us how they would like to receive feedback.
Information and resources about supporting disabled students are:
Examples of where particular feedback format may be helpful to students:
A student with dyslexia may prefer audio feedback over written as it may take them less time to listen and understand feedback if they experience word decoding issues and have slower reading speeds. But this may also be applicable for students whose time is impacted in other ways e.g. those with caring responsibilities, commuter students or students who may experience fatigue due to long term health or mental health conditions.
A student with an Autism Spectrum Condition will value clear, unambiguous feedback that is clearly stated and placed next to text it relates to.
We cannot control how students perceive feedback, but awareness of challenges with, for example, spelling and grammar that may be directly attributed to a disability, should guide us to providing feedback that is:
- Sensitive to the potential reasons for the errors
- Constructive, pointing out what has been done well and what needs improving
- Raises awareness of sources of support to develop academic and core literacy skills
- Fosters student understanding of the purpose of feedback
- Fosters students to employ self-reflection and utilise development opportunities
So, whilst there is no single form of feedback that will universally meet the needs of, or be valued by all students, balancing what you know about your student cohort with forms of feedback and tools available to you, will help you to consider and select the most effective forms of feedback for access and engagement.
Here is Sarah Graham talking about feedback (5.5 minutes). This comes from the NEPS module on Giving Effective Feedback.
