Enhancing feedback for students across a Health Sciences Faculty (original) (raw)

How much feedback is enough for undergraduate students in medicine, dentistry and health science? Feedback is meant to provide students with sufficient information on their performance in a given activity so it guides their future performance in similar activities. Different models of feedback have been described in the literature, some more comprehensively than others, with formative assessment and reflective practice being the underlying themes for all of the models. Data gathered from the undergraduate courses of Medicine, Dentistry, Health Sciences and Podiatric Medicine raised awareness of the common issues related to insufficient and inadequate feedback for students about their performance. These findings shaped the development of five targeted pilot projects. The pilot projects looked at ways to improve verbal and written feedback through formal and informal mechanisms. This paper describes how one Faculty is approaching the difficult task of shifting the established culture of offering limited feedback to students and enabling students to ask for feedback that is appropriate and useful for them. In doing so it offers ideas for other Faculties wanting to enhance the feedback mechanisms for students.