Developing a departmental strategy to improve student feedback

In response to the National Student Survey, the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University decided to improve both the written feedback given to students on coursework and the time taken to return marked coursework. This required discussing the students’ expectations of written feedback with both staff student liaison committees and departmental staff meetings. Underpinning the development of the strategy was a strong wish not to impose a uniform approach on staff and also to make clear that a well designed feedback system can reduce staff time spent on marking rather than increase it. Examples of different approaches to feedback were developed and debated at staff meetings. Also discussed was the link between learning outcomes, marking schemes and the type of feedback to give students. With the individual investigative project modules, feedback sheets were developed to reflect the different expectations from BEng and MEng students as stated in the Engineering Council’s UK-SPEC publication. It was agreed by staff that the minimum a student could expect was a generic feedback sheet for the whole cohort and that ideally all written feedback should be individual. To ensure both timely return of coursework and to allow spot checks of the level of feedback to students, a central coursework return point for staff was established. The department sees its strategy on coursework as an ongoing process and has improved the response from its students on feedback year on year as evidence by the National Student Surve