Understanding your feedback

Feedback provided during your studies is the cornerstone of continuous development; it strengthens understanding of your subject and encourages reflection on performance. Aimed at success, it reinforces good habits and corrects poor habits, and is an essential part of effective student learning. It can take place in many forms, verbally, electronically and written; come from your course tutors, fellow students, and contacts on placements; either as individual feedback or from a group. This module is focused primarily on engaging with written feedback.

Fully engaging with feedback is a crucial element in improving not only your skills and knowledge but also your confidence, self-awareness and enthusiasm for learning. Once you have received your feedback, there are three elements you ought to consider carefully:

Make sure you understand it!

Do not focus on the numerical value only! Take time to analyse your feedback, both the comments on your script and the overall comments. Read/listen to it carefully and make a practice of annotating it. Finally, discuss the feedback with your Personal Academic Tutor or Module Lecturer to ensure you can fully appreciate what you did well and what areas may require further development in the future.

Why not read Dr Dennis Nigbur's blog post on Busting Markers' Jargon to find out more.

Here you can explore common examples of feedback you may receive, what it means and how you can use it to improve your assignments further. 

If you are unsure of how to use Turnitin to access feedback, take a look at our useful Introduction to Turnitin module.