This resource offers research-informed strategies for providing feedback that is clear, timely, and aligned with your learning objectives. This page defines feedback with research-informed strategies for giving effective feedback, including self-evaluation and peer feedback.
What is Effective Feedback?
Feedback is information shared with learners to help them improve their work. This may include letter grades, rubrics, reflections, comments, and self and peer reviews. Feedback is essential for learners to understand the strengths and areas to improve in their work.
Effective feedback is goal-referenced, tangible and transparent, actionable, user-friendly (specific and personalized), timely, ongoing, consistent (Wiggins, 2012), and growth-focused [“WISE" (Yeager et al., 2014)].
Strategies for Effective Feedback
Goal-Referenced
Description
Connects feedback directly to specific learning goals or criteria to clarify expectations and support student understanding of success.
Strategy
Instead of vague comments like “good job” or “weak analysis,” try:
“Your analysis effectively identifies key themes, aligning well with our objective of critical literary analysis.”
“In your presentation, the clear articulation of your hypothesis aligns with our strong goal of developing research questions.”
Tangible and Transparent
Description
Grounds feedback in observable aspects of student work; avoids abstract statements or generalities.
Strategy
Rather than “clarify this,” say: “During your group discussion, you provided relevant examples, which helped clarify complex concepts for your peers.” Or: “Your lab report includes all required sections, but the results section lacks detailed data interpretation.”
Actionable
Description
Gives concrete suggestions students can act on to improve their work or performance.
Strategy
Instead of “make a strong argument,” try: “To strengthen your argument, consider incorporating recent case studies discussed in class.” “Rehearsing your presentation with a peer can help improve your delivery and timing.”
User-Friendly
Description
Uses clear, simple language that students can easily understand and apply to their work. Feedback should feel supportive and individualized.
Strategy
Use plain language and limit feedback to 1–2 strengths and 1–2 improvement areas. For example: “I appreciated how you structured your introduction. Support your claims with more evidence to make your argument easier to follow.” Avoid academic jargon or overly critical tones.
Timely
Description
Provided while the task is still fresh, giving students time to reflect and act on it.
Strategy
Provide feedback soon after submission so students can integrate suggestions in upcoming assignments or revisions: “Here’s a quick note on your draft before the final submission—your outline is strong, but watch out for citation consistency.”
Ongoing
Description
Feedback is not a one-time occurrence; it’s built into the learning process through multiple touchpoints.
Strategy
Use formative strategies like feedback on drafts, exit tickets, or low-stakes quizzes to provide ongoing guidance. Offer feedback at various stages: “This first draft shows a good start. Next, focus on providing evidence for your analysis in paragraphs two and four.”
Consistent
Description
Reinforces standards and expectations, helping students recognize patterns in your feedback and develop consistency in their performance.
Strategy
Use the same rubric language throughout the term, and revisit learning outcomes when providing feedback. For example: “As in your previous assignment, I’d like to see clearer citations—refer back to our citation checklist.” See TEP Rubric Resources
Growth-Focused (WISE)
Description
Shows belief in students’ ability to succeed, improving motivation and trust, especially for marginalized students.
Strategy
Add: “I’m giving you these comments because I have high standards and I know you can meet them.” (Yeager et al., 2014)
Self-Assessment and Peer Feedback
Self-assessment and peer feedback are two effective strategies that can be integrated into any course to help students develop metacognitive skills, ultimately enhancing their own performance as well as that of their peers (Kane et al., 2014).
Strategies for Self-Assessment
- Use Rubrics: Invite students to evaluate their own work using your rubric before submitting it.
- Guided Reflection Prompts: Ask questions like: “What’s strongest in this work? What needs more development?”
- Self-Assessment Checklists: Share pre-submission checklists to help students confirm completion.
- Two-Draft Model: Require a draft with self-assessment before final submission to support revision.
Strategies for Peer Feedback
- Model Giving Feedback: Use sentence starters like “One strength of your work is…” or “A suggestion for improvement is…”
- Structured Forms: Use peer review forms or rubrics to focus students’ attention on specific elements.
- Reflect on Feedback: Ask students to respond to the feedback they receive: “What will you revise based on this?”
References
- Huisman, B., et al. (2018). The impact of formative peer feedback on higher education students’ academic writing: a Meta-Analysis. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 44(6), 863–880.
- Kane, S., Lear, M., & Dube, C. M. (2014). Reflections on the role of metacognition in student reading and learning at higher education level. Africa Education Review, 11(4), 512–525.
- Mok, M. M. C., et al. (2006). Self‐assessment in higher education: experience in using a metacognitive approach in five case studies. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(4), 415–433.
- Yeager, D. S., et al. (2014). Breaking the Cycle of Mistrust: Wise Interventions to Provide Critical Feedback Across the Racial Divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 804–824.
- Wiggins, Grant. (2012). Seven Keys to Effective Feedback. ASCD.