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Elective feedback

By Steve Draper, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow.

The idea is, that the learner / author asks for the feedback they want e.g. by attaching a cover sheet with 3 questions on. N.B. "elective feedback" is sometimes used differently, to refer to feedback by students on an elective course (e.g. a period abroad). Here it is a good name for feedback the learner only gets if they want it, and if they ask for it.

There are several independent reasons why this is a good idea:

Getting students to think about what they want to know, and ask for it, is a way of making them pro-active about their learning in general and the feedback process in particular. This is good for learners as an attribute (self-regulation), as a learning skill, at the metacognitive level.
Regardless of whether it is a good learning outcome, it makes the use of feedback much more productive immediately, on the spot. It makes it a lot more likely that the learner will attend to and use the feedback.
Getting positive feedback on a specific issue. When I've got students to do it, quite often they ask for feedback on an aspect that they are worried about but that actually they are doing fine. This means that they would never get (positive) feedback on it otherwise. In other words, at least for essay marking, you won't get specific positive feedback (there is no end to the things a given essay did right) unless you ask for it: but clearly students sometimes need this information.
Cost control. Feedback costs serious staff time, which is a small finite supply. This can be used to reduce the amount of time staff spend writing feedback comments, while targeting the students and points that actually need comments.

There are several people who've used it, and several names for the approach, including:

Phillip Mallett. Mallett, P. (2004). Self and peer-assessment of written work in English (Case Study 6), in Juwah, C. et al. Enhancing Student Learning through Effective Formative Feedback. (SENLEF Project). York: Higher Education Academy, 28-30. An initiative in honours-level English Literature which demonstrates various possibilities for drawing students more directly into the feedback process. In the first of two essays students complete a self-assessment sheet in which they not only identify the essay's strengths and weaknesses and suggest what mark it merits, but also indicate what aspects of their work they would most like to have feedback on from the tutor. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/resource_database/id353_effective_formative_feedback_juwah_etal
Lin Norton: "Student-request feedback" Norton,L. (2001) "Researching your teaching: the case for action research" Psychology learning and teaching vol.1 no. pp.21-27
Helen Ashton (Heriot Watt) has used this in level 1 computer programming courses to reduce staff time by targeting feedback. In a first year, 2nd semester module, she required students to hand in more work (steps towards a final larger task) than she could routinely give feedback on. Students had to self-assess against each criterion (e.g. "understand arrays"); and then make 1-3 feedback requests.
At this point, elective feedback shows kinship with the use of pro-formas students are required to fill out before attending consultations e.g. stats consultations for psychology students, but also maths students with expert older students. Here the point goes back to [1] above: getting students to think carefully about what exactly they want to ask, they prepare the student to make the 1:1 session productive rather than starting with a display of total helplessness.
Peter Elbow. There is a cover sheet to open the dialogue, where the teacher asks specific questions such as: "What was your main point?"; What were your sub-points?"; "Which parts of the submitted essay feel strong and weak?"; "What questions do you have for me as reader?". In replying, students write an informal cover letter to hand in with an essay; and which the teacher responds to in giving comments on the work.
Elbow, P. and Sorcinelli, M. D. (2006) "How to enhance learning by using high-stakes and low-stakes writing" in McKeachie's Teaching Tips (eds) W. J. McKeachie and M. Svinicki 192-212. (New York, Houghton Mifflin).
Sue Bloxham: "Interactive cover sheets"
Bloxham, S and Campbell, L. (2008) "Creating a feedback dialogue: exploring the use of interactive coversheets" Paper presented at the Improving Student Learning Symposium, University of Durham, Sept 1-3rd [Published as a a book by now?]
Bloxham,S. & Campbell,L. (2010) "Generating dialogue in assessment feedback exploring the use of interactive coversheets" Assessment and Evaluation in HE vol.35 no.3 pp.291-300 doi:10.1080/02602931003650045
(Broken link to Bloxham pebblepad pebblepad )
I myself also use it as an element in reciprocal peer critiquing.

See also the Edinburgh "enhancing feedback" website on elective feedback.

Relationship to self-assessment

Note that when I got my students to do both formative self-assessment and elective feedback, they said it didn't add anything. Requiring a mark may add something; but for formative purposes, elective and self-assessment may cover the same ground w.r.t. intrinsic benefit to the learner (getting comments from others however adds some value).

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