Challenges to Providing Effective Feedback

by Jessie L. Moore

October 20, 2022

60-Second SoTL – Episode 8

This week’s episode features a recent article from the open-access journal, Teaching & Learning Inquiry, and explores instructors’ perspectives on challenges to providing effective feedback:

Paris, Brit M. 2022. “Instructors’ Perspectives of Challenges and Barriers to Providing Effective Feedback.” Teaching and Learning Inquiry 10. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.10.3

View a transcript of this episode.

The episode was hosted by Jessie L. Moore, Director of the Center for Engaged Learning and Professor of Professional Writing & Rhetoric. 60-Second SoTL is produced by the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University.

Read More about Effective Feedback Processes

  • Agius, Natalie M., and Ann Wilkinson. 2014. “Students’ and Teachers’ Views of Written Feedback at Undergraduate Level: A Literature Review.” Nurse Education Today 34 (4): 552–559. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2013.07.005
  • Boud, David, and Elizabeth Molloy. 2013. “Rethinking Models of Feedback for Learning: The Challenge of Design.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 38 (6): 698–712. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2012.691462
  • Carless, David, and David Boud. 2018. “The Development of Student Feedback Literacy: Enabling Uptake of Feedback.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 2938 (May): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1463354 [Open Access]
  • Carless, David, and Naomi Winstone. 2020. “Teacher Feedback Literacy and Its Interplay with Student Feedback Literacy Feedback Literacy.” Teaching in Higher Education, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2020.1782372
  • Dawson, Phillip, Michael Henderson, Paige Mahoney, Michael Phillips, Tracii Ryan, David Boud, and Elizabeth Molloy. 2019. “What Makes for Effective Feedback: Staff and Student Perspectives.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 44 (1): 25–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2018.1467877 [Open Access]
  • Eli Review. n.d. “Feedback and Improvement: Becoming a Better Writer by Helping Other Writers.” https://elireview.com/content/students/feedback [Open Access]
  • Eli Review. n.d. “The Pedagogy: Feedback and Revision.” https://elireview.com/learn/pedagogy/ [Open Access]
  • Henderson, Michael, Tracii Ryan, and Michael Phillips. 2019. “The Challenges of Feedback in Higher Education.” Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 44 (8): 1237–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2019.1599815
  • Henderson, Michael, Tracii Ryan, David Boud, Phillip Dawson, Michael Phillips, Elizabeth Molloy, and Paige Mahoney. 2019a. “The Usefulness of Feedback.” Active Learning in Higher Education, September, 146978741987239. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787419872393 [Open Access]
  • Henderson, Michael, Michael Phillips, Tracii Ryan, David Boud, Elizabeth Molloy, and Paige Mahoney. 2019b. “Conditions That Enable Effective Feedback.” Higher Education Research and Development 38 (7): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1657807 [Open Access]
  • To, Jessica. 2021. “Using Learner-Centred Feedback Design to Promote Students’ Engagement with Feedback.” Higher Education Research and Development, February, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.1882403
  • Winstone, Naomi E., and David Carless. 2019. Designing Effective Feedback Processes in Higher Education. Abingdon: Routledge.

Read More about Feedback from CEL’s Blog

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Creating Feedback Cultures with Neurodivergent Students 

Since publishing Key Practices for Fostering Engaged Learning: A Guide for Faculty and Staff in 2023, I’ve had several opportunities to brainstorm with educators about how the key practices apply in their higher education settings and with their diverse students….

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Building Trust through Feedback

60-Second SoTL – Episode 60 This episode features an open access article on building trust through feedback with relationship-building conditions and agency-promoting practices: Bayraktar, Breana, Kiruthika Ragupathi, and Katherine A. Troyer. 2025. “Building Trust Through Feedback: A Conceptual Framework for Educators.” Teaching…

Man writing objectives on a whiteboard. White quoted text reads: "For students to give, receive, and learn from feedback, they must understand exactly what they are asked to demonstrate.”

Implementing Effective Feedback Practices: Strategy 2

In part one of this two-part blog, I revisited results from my students who completed the feedback literacy behavior scale (Dawson et al. 2023). I identified two areas in which students demonstrated room for improvement: (1) seeking feedback information; and…

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Implementing Effective Feedback Practices: Strategy 1 

Two blog posts ago, I shared my early spring semester plans for giving students effective feedback and promoting their feedback literacy in an early college calculus course. Going into that semester, I realized that to promote student feedback literacy, it…

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