What Makes Feedback Meaningful?

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Moving beyond “Good work” comments

I recently met with a pedagogical counsellor for a Cégep in the Laurentians, who told me that in a recent survey of their English teachers, the number one concern was assessment, and, in particular, how to best provide feedback to their students.  

I wasn’t surprised. I’ve been exploring feedback and assessment for over a decade now—and from both sides of the red pen, feedback remains the most challenging aspect of teaching and learning. Students want more from their feedback: more of it, as well as a clearer idea of what to do with it when they get it. Teachers struggle to provide feedback: when we’re on essay #15 of 75, we’ve already exhausted our bank of comments and our pens are out of ink.

My goals with this four-part blog series are to share with you some of my ideas about feedback and assessment, and to show you some of the ways I implement these ideas in my own classroom. Although my own practice is rooted in the Professional Writing and Composition spheres, I will do my best to provide suggestions for how to bring these ideas into your classroom, no matter what you teach. 

A note: some of the material in this series is taken from my chapter, “Meaningful Feedback in the Online Learning Environment,” which appears in Assessment of Online Learners (P. Seitz & L. Hill, Eds., 2024).

The difference between responding and dialoguing

Most teachers, no matter how novice or experienced, recognize that feedback is an essential element of learning. Ramaprasad’s (1983) seminal work on the subject defined feedback as information about the gap between student performance in an assessment task and the standard against which that performance is evaluated. The key word for me in this understanding of feedback is “gap”—what’s the space between what the student has produced and where I want them to be? What is the nature of the gap? How can I help the student bridge the gap, and get to where they want to go? 

One structural element of that bridge should be a clear connection between our feedback and the purpose, nature, and design of our assessments.  Wiggins and McTighe (2005), Hattie and Timperley (2007), and Boud (2015), have all made it clear that feedback is only truly effective if follow-up and interaction are explicitly part of the assessment design. There is a fundamental difference between simply responding to student performance and engaging in a dialogue or “system of feedback loops” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 185). In other words, “good job” isn’t really feedback, because it’s a dead end—nothing more need be said by either student or teacher. Our feedback, in this model, invites response.

It’s tempting, when you’re reading that 15th (or 75th) essay, to fall back on the checkmark, the X, or the ubiquitous “good work” comment in the margins, but such communication is unidirectional and terminal. There’s no invitation to continue the dialogue, nor is there any indication of what to do next or what to take from the exercise of performance and assessment. Somehow, we need to make it clear to students that our feedback is giving them information about not just the task they’ve already done, but the ones they’ll have to do next. 

To be effective—that is, to be meaningful and supportive of learning through assessment—feedback must be a two-way communication, with space for reactions and revisions. I say, then, that meaningful feedback is multifaceted communication about the relationship between production, performance, and the explicit standard, with the goal of changing that relationship over time.

This doesn’t mean we need, necessarily, to make radical changes in our feedback practices. It can be as simple as phrasing a comment as a question, rather than a statement. “How can you make this point clearer?” invites follow-up. “Your point isn’t clear” does not. 

Ramaprasad’s (1983) definition of feedback as information about the gap between a level-appropriate standard and student performance provides a useful image to bear in mind: the space between expectations and deliverables. We tend to think of that space as a negative—student performance is anticipated to be less than the desired outcome. Perhaps the most supportive thing to do for students is to consider the gap as multidirectional and focus feedback on how student work differs from, rather than fails to meet, your expectations.

Thinking about feedback this way is one step to making it more effective, more useful, and, of course, more meaningful for students. 

A framework for meaningful feedback: Seven essential principles

In their comprehensive review of the literature, Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) proposed seven principles of effective feedback: 

1. Clarify what constitutes good performance 
2. Facilitate self-assessment  
3. Deliver high-quality information about student learning 
4. Encourage dialogue  
5. Encourage positive self-perception 
6. Provide opportunities to close the gap  
7. Extrapolate information to move forward.

In the rest of this series, I’ll use these seven principles to frame our exploration of meaningful feedback. In the next post, we’ll look at what it means to clarify standards, using things like models, workshops, and rubrics; we’ll also get into self-assessment and how to support it in our classes. 

Reflections on the Path Forward

At the end of the day, refining how we give feedback isn’t about reaching some perfect, stress-free destination where the essays grade themselves. It’s an ongoing practice that changes with the season and the students in front of us. If we can shift our mindset to see feedback as an open line of communication rather than a final verdict, the “red pen” starts to feel a lot less like final judgment, and more like guidance and support. 

As we get ready to dive into Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick’s principles, I’d love for you to take a quick look at your own feedback practices. Transitioning from a monologue to a dialogue doesn't have to be a massive uphill climb. Often, it’s just about noticing the habits you’ve already built and seeing where you might make a few minor adjustments.

Before the next post, take a moment to sit with these questions: 

• The “Dead End” Check: When you look at your last batch of comments, do they feel like the final word, or do they leave space for the student to come back with a question or a revision?
• Mirror or Compass: Does your feedback mostly act as a mirror (reflecting what went wrong in the past) or a compass (pointing the way toward the next task)? 
• Happy Trails: Do your students have a clear view of the “summit” (the goal) before they start the hike, or are they only seeing the map once the trip is already over?
• Sharing the Load: Right now, are you the only one doing the “grading” work? Where could you carve out space for more collaborative work like peer or self-assessment? 

In the next post, we’ll look at how to take the mystery out of the “standard,” using models, workshops, and rubrics to make the goal visible from the start. We’ll also explore how to help students pick up their own tools for self-assessment so the journey across that gap becomes a team effort.

REFERENCES 

Boud, D. (2015). Feedback: Ensuring it leads to enhanced learning. The Clinical Teacher, 12, 3–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/tct.12345

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487

Nicol, D. J., & Macfarlane‐Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070600572090

Ramaprasad, A. (1983). On the definition of feedback. Behavioral Science, 28(1), 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/bs.3830280103

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 

AI was used to synthesize my chapter and suggest an outline for the blog series, and to check for errors or misplaced references.