However, I have consistently found this process does not necessarily translate into good and relevant feedback from the student point of view. Perhaps task one and two can be so simply learned by a lecturer from direct experience because of their inherently objective nature. However, the objectivity of the first two tasks may be responsible for an assumption that we should consider only the objective feedback their analysis identifies. By doing so we are possibly at odds with the student's own opinion of the value and quality of the submission. For feedback to be effective, it must be accepted by the student.
More information is needed than is provided by the student in the assignment alone.
Last year, I developed a simple pro forma, which was issued with other assignment information to all students, the intention being that it should provide me with the additional information necessary to recognise and respect student expectations in my feedback. I now would like to go on to explain the format of the pro forma, discuss some important points which I think need to be considered when introducing it to a class and provide details of a survey I carried out on final year students who trialed the pro forma in both semesters of last year. Assignment pro forma From my experience in discussions with students after returning assignments to them, two points seemed to be raised more than any other. The first related to the awarded mark and the second to areas of the assignment in which the students believed they had performed particularly well. From my point of view, I found these students tended to overlook aspects of the assignments which had not been covered well and this resulted in unreasonable expectations on their part.