Enhancing students’ assessment feedback skills within higher education

Abstract

In higher education (HE) considerable attention is focused on the skills sets students need to meet the requirements of the fourth industrial revolution. The acquisition of high-level assessment feedback skills is fundamental to lifelong learning. HE has made significant investment in developing assessment feedback practices over the last 30 years; however, far less attention has been given to the development of inclusive agentic integrated assessment systems that promote student agency and autonomy in assessment feedback, and from an individual differences perspective. “Inside the Black Box,” a seminal work, opened the potential of assessment as a supportive process in facilitating students in coming to know (understanding the requirements of a task and context, and their own learning) through the development of formative assessment. However, overall, the assessment for learning movement has not changed students’ perceptions, on entering HE, that feedback is something they receive rather than something they can generate and orchestrate despite being predicated on a self-regulatory approach. HE promotes students’ use of self-regulated learning approaches although these are not sufficiently integrated into curriculum systems. In moving forward assessment feedback, it is important to adopt a theoretically integrated approach that draws on self-regulatory frameworks, agentic engagement concepts, understanding of individual differences, and the situated nature of assessment. Current emphases in HE focus on how we engage students as active participants in assessment, in coming to know assessment requirements as part of sustainable practices with students as co-constructors of assessment inputs and outputs. Assessment design should be challenging students to maximize their selective and appropriate use of assessment feedback skills for both immediate and longer-term learning gains. Addressing the professional development of lecturers and students in the acquisition and development of essential fourth industrial age assessment feedback competencies is fundamental to enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in HE.