Tutor perceptions of feedback

Studies on tutor perceptions of the feedback process are relatively few, usually contained within studies that explore gaps in student and tutor perceptions (Carless, 2006; MacLellan, 2001), but there have been several more recent studies focusing more on tutor practice and experience of giving feedback (Bailey & Garner, 2010; Li & Barnard, 2011; Tuck, 2011). In a 40-item questionnaire survey in a Scottish university, MacLellan (2001) investigated the views of 69 experienced staff and 130 third year B.Ed. undergraduates in relation to questions relating to eight variables including assessment purpose, timing, mode, marking and feedback. Each

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questionnaire item attempted to measure the frequency that participants had

experienced practices under consideration. McLellan found that for staff, the primary purpose of assessment was to award grades, and while they emphasised the

developmental and formative nature of feedback, their responses suggested this was not a prominent feature of their practice; peer and self-assessment were infrequently used, for example, and the traditional essay was the main mode of assessment. Tutors were also found to overestimate the feedback detail they provided and its usefulness, while students questioned both of these.

In a later study, Carless (2006) used a 36 Likert-type item questionnaire to survey 460 staff and 1740 undergraduates in eight public universities in Hong Kong. Interviews were also conducted in English with 15 students to collect qualitative data, with a further 7 interviews carried out in Cantonese. Carless found that tutors and students generally agreed about the emotional aspects of feedback, but not on issues of feedback effectiveness: More than a third of tutors felt students were often given detailed feedback to improve their assignments while only about ten per cent of students agreed with this. Tutors and students also disagreed over attention to grades, with tutors perceiving students as oriented mainly to grades and ignoring feedback, but students challenging this perception. Carless concluded that dialogue and discussion between staff and students was necessary to make the assessment process more transparent for students.

In a study of 48 tutors across a range of subject disciplines in a post 1992 University, Bailey and Garner ( 2010) used semi-structured interviews to explore tutor experience of written feedback in their own contexts. Tutors were asked to reflect on purposes of feedback, what they hoped to achieve in their feedback and what they thought students did with the feedback. Findings included the awareness of the difficulty of providing effective feedback to students due to its multiple purposes and audiences. Tutors also reported varying beliefs and much uncertainty about what their students did with feedback. Bailey and Garner observed that teachers were aware of “...a conflict between their conceptions of the purposes of feedback, their intentions and the institutional requirements of the system” (p. 195), leading to their stereotyping of student motivations and indifference to the quality of feedback they provided. They concluded that when students failed to learn from

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feedback it was often easier to blame them rather than the system. Institutional requirements (such as standardised feedback forms) intended to promote transparency and consistency were reported to have a negative impact on the feedback process, and contributed to a feeling of a lack of ownership over feedback practices.

A later study by Tuck (2011) came to broadly similar conclusions to that of Bailey and Garner. Located in six UK universities including Russell Group,

Oxbridge and post-1992 institutions, Tuck’s study focused on 14 tutors’ perceptions and reported practice with all aspects of undergraduate writing and feedback. Based mainly on semi-structured interviews, Tuck also used a follow up interview which featured discussion of feedback sheets, with some additional data on think aloud during assignment marking. Tuck found evidence that institutional measures such as criterion referencing, standardised feedback sheets, double-marking etc. were more likely to exacerbate the problem of ineffectual feedback than remedy it, echoing Bailey and Garner’s (2010) findings. Tutors complained about a lack of ownership of their feedback, and insufficient internal discussion about best practice. Like Bailey and Garner she found that individuals and small groups collaborated within their contexts but not at institutional level, and that in conforming to departmental policy, tutor feedback often resulted in uniformity and a lack of clarity. Tuck focused on the way tutors balanced competing tasks, concluding that different roles of

teacher, academic worker and assessor implied different relationships which were “…not easily reconcilable …for givers and readers of feedback” (p.10). Although tutors adapted to institutional requirements in different ways to circumvent

institutional barriers and provide effective feedback, tutor led innovations were often “small scale and short-lived” (Tuck, 2011, p. 11), and a fragmentary student learning experience resulted. Tuck called for more productive dialogue around writing.

Li and Barnard (2011) carried out a study with sixteen inexperienced part- time tutors in a New Zealand university. They collected data on beliefs and practices from a survey, followed by individual interviews, with nine tutors taking part in later ‘think aloud’ activities and focus groups. Their main findings supported earlier work by Bailey and Garner on the constraints of assessment requirements and their

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with giving feedback that justified their marks to colleagues and academic superiors rather than improving student writing skills.