Practising what we preach: towards a student-centred definition of feedback

Students appear to have an almost insatiable appetite for receiving feedback and the scholarly literature has acknowledged its central importance for learning. And yet there is no widely accepted definition of feedback, most definitions reflecting the perspective of the teacher rather than student. When staff at the University of New South Wales who had put a lot of time into providing feedback nevertheless failed to score highly on the course satisfaction survey question on feedback, staff conjectured that their students might not recognize what they are providing as constituting feedback. A study was undertaken to find out just how students would define feedback. This article provides the background to the study, describes its design and presents the definition of feedback as conceptualised by the students, and then considers its significance.