University “needs to get their act together” over feedback

The University “needs to get their act together” over feedback, according to a representative from Warwick Students’ Union (SU).

Feedback on academic work at Warwick is inadequate, say many, with some students waiting up to twelve weeks for work to be handed back.

Education Officer Sean Ruston said, “There’s a long standing problem with feedback. It’s often late and of poor quality which doesn’t truly help you improve.”

In last year’s National Student Survey (NSS) results, only 56 percent of students said feedback was prompt and only 55 percent said feedback helped clarify things the student did not understand. These results are significantly worse than many of the University’s competitors.

“We’re not doing too well,” said Ruston. “The University needs to get their act together.”

The SU have launched a ‘Hungry for Feedback’ campaign to increase awareness and put pressure on the University to do something about it.

Students are being asked to sign a petition on the SU webpage.

Many departments refuse to give feedback on examinations, the most substantial form of assessment in all degrees, according to Ruston.

Ruston also said feedback in the next academic year is unhelpful, as students have often forgotten all about the exams.

In response, Warwick’s Head of Communications Peter Dunn said non-final year exams take place towards the end of their term as final year exams take precedence.

“It is therefore clearly not possible to deliver any feedback from such exams, beyond the actual marks, before the end of the final term.

“The first practical point that this could be done is the start of the next academic term.”

The School of Life Sciences is one department that does not give feedback from examinations. However, following discussions with the _Boar_, the School said they will raise the issue with the Undergraduate Teaching Management Group to establish whether there is more that could be done.

The University recommends students should expect feedback from submitted formative and assessed work within four weeks, but this often does not happen.

Second-year Engineering student Will Thorpe said, “It’s not as if every assignment we get handed back has no feedback at all, sometimes they can give some good constructive comments.

“However, I have often been handed an assignment back with no comments at all, just a raw mark. I think it is certainly an area that needs improvement.”

A number of Biomedical Science students, who wish to remain anonymous, told the Boar they waited twelve weeks for a lab report to be returned, on which they received very little feedback.

One Physics student reported a similar experience.

The Boar asked the University to comment on such long waits for feedback, including how they plan to tackle it. Dunn said: “We have had no sense centrally that any significant number of science students are facing any such delay on their assessed work. If they are, they should raise it with their staff student liaison committees.”

‘Biology and related Sciences’ only received 17 per cent for its NSS score for prompt feedback.

However, John McCarty, Head of the School of Life Sciences, said the feedback and marking process is much more difficult for science subjects.

“Practical work is a major component but the down side is it is the most difficult aspect to mark.

“We have established the source of the problem of offering too much choice. This makes it much less predictable and so much harder to run the course. Next year we will be less flexible with choice in order to speed up the process.”

McCarty said the department are working hard to improve feedback. Next year, more work will be done electronically, which means feedback will be much quicker.

He said this was just one part of the “on-going process to improve the student experience”.

Some departments however performed well on last year’s NSS, including History who received 79 per cent last year for prompt feedback.

Head of Department Maria Luddy said History at Warwick appears to be “one of the best” with regards to feedback, adding essays are normally returned within two weeks.

However, Luddy thinks the department often scores lower on feedback because students often do not know what feedback is: “Every time an essay is handed back, the tutor will sit down for fifteen minutes with each student individually to discuss their mark. This is feedback, yet often we are told we don’t give enough feedback.

“This process takes up a lot of the academics’ time but we think it’s important.”

Do you think you get adequate feedback in your degree? E-mail us at news@theboar.org or discuss below.