The Impact of Feedback in Higher Education

Book excerpt: This book asks how we might conceptualise, design for and evaluate the impact of feedback in higher education. Ultimately, the purpose of feedback is to improve what students can do: therefore, effective feedback must have impact. Students need to be actively engaged in seeking, sense-making and acting upon any information provided to them in order to develop and improve. Feedback can thus be understood as not just the giving of information, but as a complex process integral to teaching and learning in which both teachers and students have an important role to play. The editors challenge us to ask two fundamental questions: when does feedback make a difference, and how can we recognise that impact? This volume draws together leading international researchers across diverse disciplines, offering promising directions for both research and practice.