In their latest research project, Abbi Shaw (UCL Arts & Humanities Faculty Learning Technology Lead) and Jesper Hansen (UCL Arts & Humanities Arena Faculty Lead) surveyed staff in UCL Arts & Humanities about their experiences of feedback and assessment. Abbi and Jesper’s research sheds light on what staff see as constituting effective feedback and how they have experienced student engagement, or the lack thereof, with feedback. The report raises important questions for future discussions concerning student engagement, staff workloads, inclusivity, and teaching processes at UCL Arts & Humanities. To find out more about their findings, we asked Abbi and Jesper some key questions about their work:

“KCL Examination Day” by KiloCharlieLima, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

1. To start, can you tell us a bit about the background and main objectives of your 2024/25 feedback and assessment survey of UCL Arts & Humanities?

Over the last four years, we have put in a lot of work to centre the actual experiences of students and staff in our Faculty. This is important as it links research done in other places with the reality at UCL Arts & Humanities, which is often both similar and different from other universities and faculties. We have found that this focus facilitates discussions about the direction the Faculty should take in terms of education, and it makes the data more pertinent to all relevant stakeholders: we can actually point to what our own students and staff are telling us. Another advantage is that we have been able to significantly shorten the delay between our research and the dissemination of our findings. Normally there would be years between research being done and findings being published in a peer-reviewed journal. By contrast, our research is normally disseminated in the term following data collection.

This year’s topic came about for two reasons. Firstly, feedback and assessment are at the top of UCL’s priorities and, as such, it makes sense to align our work with it. And, secondly, it is an area where we, as a Faculty, see students express concerns in the National Student Survey. While we are doing better than some other Faculties, there is plenty of room for improvement. When coupled with the fact that feedback and assessment are very important for students and affect their overall experience of studying, it just made sense.

2. What does effective feedback look like?

There is plenty of research on effective feedback, and we know that clarity and actionability are key. This means that students have to understand the feedback and be able to use it to improve their future work. Professor David Boud, one of the world’s leading experts on feedback, spoke at UCL’s Education Conference some years ago. He argues that something cannot be considered feedback unless it has an impact on the student. At UCL, we now ask staff to think about feedback from two different perspectives: a mark justification, which helps students understand the mark they received, and developmental feedback, which helps students improve and, ideally, achieve a better mark in the future. The bespoke part of feedback is then relevant because no two students are the same: if we rely too heavily, for instance, on pre-written comments, it risks not being particularly developmental for the student reading it.

In our Faculty, we know that staff spend a lot of time giving feedback, and we know that there is a desire to help students improve. So this is not, we would argue, about us not trying or not wanting to give good and effective feedback, but about a disconnect between what we are doing and what students expect and see as useful.

3. How do workload, time constraints, and other barriers impact staff’s ability to provide effective feedback?

Given what we outlined above, it might sound like staff are being asked to spend more time giving feedback. But that is not the case: more feedback does not equal better and more effective feedback, if anything it’s often the other way around. We know from other research that students generally do not request large amounts of feedback from their tutors. Rather, they want targeted feedback that clearly explains the mark (and here we suggest linking feedback directly to the marking criteria), and some specific ideas. A good example could be a list of 3-4 bullet points which explain how their work can be improved in future, ideally with some signposting of further support. If you find yourself writing longer feedback, sometimes a list of bullet points can be used to sum up your main action points: ‘Based on the feedback I have given you above and in the margins, I suggest you consider the following three points in your next assignment…’

Staff answering our survey discussed two distinct barriers to providing effective feedback. One concerned anonymity: how do we give bespoke feedback when we don’t know who we are talking to? This is a topic that is being debated across the sector. While we certainly are asked to use anonymous assessment where possible, there are some caveats and workarounds. Firstly, UCL’s academic manual clearly states that we can use non-anonymous marking where there are good reasons for doing so. This might be if you are doing continuous assessment, where students work on their assessment over time (this already happens in the Faculty in, for instance, the English department’s tutorial system). Secondly, some tutors use feedback cover sheets to give students a clearer stake in the feedback process. This happens a lot in, for instance, the Institute of Education, and it might be something we can learn from in A&H. Examples of things students might be asked could be:

• Are there specific areas you would like me to comment on (such as referencing, your engagement with sources, your introduction and conclusion)?
• What did you find particularly challenging in this assignment?
• Briefly outline the feedback you have got in your previous assignments and how you have responded to it in this assignment.
• What format would you like your overall feedback comments in: written or recorded audio?
  

  Fountain pen, courtesy of Petar Milošević via Wikimedia Commons.

The other barrier that staff mentioned was the knowledge that students often don’t read the feedback we give. It can be very disillusioning if we believe that students ignore the feedback we invest an enormous amount of time and energy to create. The way we see it, we could choose to blame the students. Or we could try to understand why they are not reading feedback and discuss how we can make it more attractive for them to engage with it. This question of why some students don’t see value in engaging with their feedback is one that we will explore further this term as we survey students in the Faculty. We will report back on our findings, of course, but we also invite staff to consider how we can change our feedback processes to align more with students’ needs.

4. At the day-to-day level of teaching, how might we build a shared understanding between students and staff of what feedback is and how it can help student progress?

When thinking about how others involved in the teaching, learning and assessment of students might support the development of student feedback literacy, we can look at managing their expectations around feedback and demonstrating putting feedback into practice – for instance, by working through a marked demonstration piece of work. We can also look at developing students’ own capacity to give feedback as a method of supporting their understanding of it, and its relevance. This might be through responding to student work such as presentations, or forum posts, or as we see in the Slade School of Fine Art, where students regularly undertake a collective feedback-giving process, by making space throughout the module for students to respond to each other’s work and ideas.

5. Many respondents believed formative assessment was useful yet expressed caveats about the process. What steps can be taken to improve engagement with formative assessment among students?

Many of our students are high achievers who are very strategic about their time. They all have competing demands on their time: studying for classes, preparing for assessments, social life, jobs (part-time or full-time), caring responsibilities and so on. If we consider formative assessment within this matrix, is it really a surprise that many students choose not to do it?

If we want students to engage with formative tasks – and we do want that, as we know it is beneficial for students – we probably need to rethink them and, just like with feedback, consider how we can make them more attractive to students. Firstly, we need to think about how we introduce these tasks to students. Do we tell them they are optional and not that important? Or do we emphasise that they are expected to do them (just like they are expected to prepare for classes)? And do we explain how doing the formative will be helpful when it comes to completing summative tasks?

6. If, in an ideal hypothetical world, you could make one innovative and less conventional change to UCL Arts & Humanities’ assessment processes, what would it be?

We have already made some really positive strides in the Faculty where we now discuss topics like feedback and assessment much more than we did just a handful of years ago. This is important as feedback and assessment cannot be addressed by looking at one or two parameters – they are too complex for that. What we need is a review of how assessment is used in modules, how module assessments come together at the programme level, and how feedback is central to students’ academic journeys. This will, potentially, be effective in ensuring that new students don’t lose faith in the feedback they get and therefore want to engage with it; which will, in turn, shape how staff engage with the feedback. Concrete examples might include how personal tutors support student feedback literacy, or how staff office hours are used more strategically.

7. What’s next for this project?

We intend to run a survey of A&H students in order to improve our understanding of their experiences. As we go through processes of curricular improvement including PEP2, and EASE, we have opportunities to gather and examine the data around assessment in modules and programmes, as described above. We will also continue to discuss how we can best support the Faculty in resolving some of the issues highlighted in our staff survey and developing students’ relationships with feedback.

UCL Wilkins Building, photographed by “Diliff” via WikiMedia Commons.

by Selena Daly (SELCS) 

The second meeting of the Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network, in November 2023, focused on assessments and featured two speakers: Dr Akil Awan, Associate Professor of Modern History and Political Violence in the Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London and Dr Eleanor Chiari, Associate Professor (Teaching) at SELCS in UCL.

Developing the ‘Unessay’

Akil presented his use of the ‘Unessay’ as part of the assessment for his module on the history of terrorism from the 19^th century to today. Instead of submitting a traditional written essay, students were asked to complete an ‘Unessay,’ essentially a creative and critical engagement with any theme from the module. Possible formats could include a piece of artwork, a documentary, a graphic novel, a website, or a short story, among many other possibilities.

Among examples of some of the best work students submitted as ‘Unessays’ were the following: a debate between a perpetrator and victim of terrorism in Northern Ireland written as a play; a board game in which you get to play as British colonial forces or the ‘Mau Mau’ or Kenyan Land and Freedom Army; and a musical composition focusing on the immediate public responses to the 9/11 attacks and remembrance of victims of terrorism. Students were also required to submit a 500-word self-reflexive essay worth 25% of the grade.

One of Akil’s students created a board game as an “unessay”. Photo by Aksel Fristrup on Unsplash

Engaging with trauma in visual culture

Eleanor presented an assessment that features as part of an undergraduate module entitled ‘Trauma in Visual Culture,’ which had similarities to the Unessay approach presented by Akil but adapted to her particular module’s context. Its aim was to encourage students to reflect more critically on emotive side of visual culture.

Students were required to submit a portfolio of work that responded to the module’s themes and theories examined. Examples of student work included: a graphic novel-style reinterpretation of Art Spiegelman’s Maus to explore the theme of post memory in the context of the Troubles in Northern Ireland; a visual journal exploring the haunting legacy of Nic Ut’s ‘terror of war’ photograph from the war in Vietnam; and a video essay which explored the idea of the ‘illogical spectator’ using family home videos from before the Syrian war. If students opted to submit an entirely abstract piece, they were required to submit a 1,500-word essay on their work.

The cover of Maus by Art Spiegelman

Both Akil and Eleanor identified similar advantages to adopting these kinds of creative assessments. Both highlighted their value in catering to a diverse student cohort and the way that they foster creativity, imagination, and experimentation. Creative assessments also allow students to make use of skills they may have developed in other aspects of their lives (e.g. music or art), allowing for more holistic learning.

The approach also encourages students to engage more personally with the module content and Eleanor highlighted how, for some students who accessed family stories, the assessment helped them see how the visual could facilitate processes of grief and healing. Another major advantage is the fact that these assessment types are ‘ChatGPT-proof,’ as an AI system would be unable to produce the creative outputs required of the students.

Navigating difficulties as a module convenor

Although both speakers emphasised how rewarding and stimulating these kinds of creative assessments can be, both Akil and Eleanor also highlighted some issues that any colleagues should be aware of when considering an assignment of this type. Both of these modules confront difficult and potentially upsetting topics so sensitivity is required of the module convenor in navigating these issues, especially if students opt to focus on a topic that is related to their personal experience. Both Akil and Eleanor always offered students an ‘escape option,’ in the form of a traditional essay, if they decided they did not want to attempt the creative assignment, although Eleanor said no student had ever requested it.

There is also a significant time commitment involved for the module leader. Each project must be individually approved, often through a number of meetings with students. And finally, but perhaps most importantly, was the issue of how to ensure parity between students. Marking criteria are thus crucial. Akil’s assignments were thus judged on a non-standard set of the criteria, including the following: suitability (use of a medium appropriate to the topic); engaging (the submission is readable/watchable/listenable); and originality (the submission adds something new rather than summarising existing information).

Assignments of this type require us to ask whether it is even possible to measure creativity, or, as Akil said, ‘how can we compare a watercolour and a short story?’ The answer is with careful handling, precise marking criteria and motivated and committed instructors.

The Creative Teaching in the Humanities Network is led by Dr Selena Daly (SELCS). If you have any queries or suggestions for future events and/or speakers, please do get in touch at selena.daly@ucl.ac.uk.