Beyond feedback: developing student capability in complex appraisal

A common practice is to give students detailed feedback about the strengths and weaknesses of their work, with suggestions for improvement. However, the impact of feedback often seems negligible, despite the investment of considerable time and effort put into its construction. With a view to increasing its effectiveness, extensive theoretical and empirical research has been carried out into structure, timing and other parameters. For students to be able to apply feedback, they need to understand the meaning of the feedback statements. They also need to identify, with near certainty, the particular aspects of their work that need attention. For this to occur, students must possess critical background knowledge. This article sets out the nature of this knowledge and how students can acquire it. They must appropriate for themselves three fundamental concepts, namely response genre, quality, and criteria, and in addition develop a cache of relevant tacit knowledge.