Structured Feedback Reflection Tutorials: Perceived Efficacy in Enhancing the Value of Tutor Feedback

Feedback should provide information on the quality of student work, but also encourage reflection, as part of the wider process of self-regulated learning. In some MSc programmes, students use assignment coversheets to explain how they applied previous feedback, but many do not complete these reflections (unpublished data). Additionally, data from our submission system shows that students often delay viewing feedback or fail to access it entirely, breaking the feedback loop and potentially demotivating staff. Structured feedback reflection tutorials, involving independent reflection using an established framework and supported by tutors, could enhance the value of feedback and improve feedback literacy. Furthermore, they may improve students’ reflection skills and promote independent reflective practice, enhancing reflective literacy, helping them to become self-regulated learners.

It is vitally important that students understand and appreciate feedback given by staff or peers. The concept of feedback literacy encompasses a student’s ability to appreciate different types of feedback, understand the feedback, and apply it to other contexts, while staying emotionally regulated. Students also need to develop evaluative judgement of their own work and others. A key point is that students need to be active participants, rather than passive recipients, for feedback to be valuable. This research investigates whether a tutorial that teaches students how to use a model, called the Gibbs’ Reflective Framework, to analyse their feedback helps them improve their feedback literacy.