Conceptualising the problematic nature of feedback in higher education:Mapping the path to enabling student engagement

The aim of this thesis is to provide a framework that integrates the literature on the problems with student feedback engagement with student perspectives to provide an institutional roadmap to effective development of student engagement with feedback. Much of the current feedback research explores individual issues and problems with feedback without considering how these problems impact on each other. There is comparatively little available research on the impacts of institutional structures and policies and their impacts on feedback delivery and engagement, with little appreciation of the interplay between tutor teaching practices, student feedback engagement and what institutions do. Using a three-stage pragmatic mixed methods process, the research sought to identify, from the literature, the problem factors that inhibit assessment feedback engagement in higher education. It then identified the problem factors with feedback engagement from the student point of view. Finally, linkages between each of the eight problem factors identified were considered to conceptualise the interplay between the problem factors. The framework for enabling student development through feedback engagement was developed as the main output of this research. The significance of this study is that the framework presents a multilayered viewpoint on the linkages between the problems with feedback engagement, including student, staff, and institutional factors, giving readers a framework off which to hang future research, staff development, and institutional policies