Studies in Higher Education

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The Conscientious Consumer: Reconsidering the

role of assessment feedback in student learning

Richard Higgins , Peter Hartley & Alan Skelton

To cite this article: Richard Higgins , Peter Hartley & Alan Skelton (2002) The Conscientious
Consumer: Reconsidering the role of assessment feedback in student learning, Studies in Higher
Education, 27:1, 53-64, DOI: 10.1080/03075070120099368

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Studies in Higher Education Volume 27, No. 1, 2002

The Conscientious Consumer:

reconsidering the role of assessment
feedback in student learning
RICHARD HIGGINS & PETER HARTLEY
Sheféeld Hallam University, UK

ALAN SKELTON
University of Sheféeld, UK

ABSTRACT This article reports the initial éndings of a 3-year research project investigating the
meaning and impact of assessment feedback for students in higher education. Adopting aspects of a
constructivist theory of learning, it is seen that formative assessment feedback is essential to encourage
the kind of ‘deep’ learning desired by tutors. There are a number of barriers to the utility of feedback
outside the sphere of control of individual students, including those relating to the quality, quantity
and language of comments. But the students in the study seemed to read and value their tutors’
comments. Their perceptions of feedback do not indicate that they are simply instrumental ‘con-
sumers’ of education, driven solely by the extrinsic motivation of the mark and as such desire feedback
which simply provides them with ‘correct answers’. Rather, the situation is more complex. While
recognising the importance of grades, many of the students in the study adopt a more ‘conscientious’
approach. They are motivated intrinsically and seek feedback which will help them to engage with
their subject in a ‘deep’ way. Implications of the éndings for theory and practice are discussed.

Introduction
The Importance of Formative Assessment
Black & Wiliam’s (2000) developing theoretical framework of formative assessment empha-
sises the interactions between teachers, pupils and subjects within ‘communities of practice’.
They adopt aspects of a constructivist approach to learning (Vygotsky, 1962; Bruner, 1986,
1990) by implying that students are not simply receptacles for transmitted information, but
active makers and mediators of meaning within particular learning contexts.
This is a view reèected in the work of Biggs (1999). He argues that meaning is constructed
through learning activities and, therefore, teaching and learning must be about conceptual
change. Furthermore, he asserts that the ways students are assessed inèuence the quality of
their learning (see also Sadler, 1983; Brown, 1999; Gibbs, 1999; Hyland, 2000). He
therefore argues that curricula, assessment procedures and teaching methods should be
aligned so that curriculum objectives relate to higher order cognitive thinking. Formative
assessment is an essential part of this alignment since it provides feedback to both tutor and

ISSN 0307-5079 print; ISSN 1470-174X online/02/010053-12 Ó 2002 Society for Research into Higher Education
DOI: 10.1080/0307507012009936 8
54 R. Higgins et al.

student (Biggs, 1999). It provides tutors with a way of checking on students’ constructions
(Biggs, 1999), and students with a means by which they can learn through information on
their progress (Brown & Knight, 1994; Ding, 1998). Feedback from formative assessment
‘has the capacity to turn each item of assessed work into an instrument for the further
development of each student’s learning’ (Hyland, 2000; p. 234). There is plenty of evidence
of the beneéts of formative assessment. For example, Black & Wiliam’s (1998) meta-analysis
of 250 research studies relevant to the subject of classroom formative assessment concluded
that formative assessment does make a positive difference to student learning. So, by
understanding teaching, assessment and learning as social practices, which involve the active
construction of meaning, we can see that formative assessment is vital for the kind of learning
valued so highly in higher education.
Feedback from formative assessment may take different forms (Hyland, 2000). How-
ever, this article focuses on written tutor comments on written assignments. MacKenzie
(1974) commented on the process of tutoring by written correspondence at the Open
University, and suggested that, in this context, written feedback comments were often the
only source of feedback for students. This is becoming the case in all institutions as the
landscape of higher education continues to be transformed. The workload of tutors is
growing alongside an expansion in the number of students. At the same time, the use of
distance learning and new technologies is becoming more extensive. As a result, face-to-face
student–tutor contact time is diminishing, leading to a greater reliance on written correspon-
dence (whether paper-based or electronic). For example, in Hyland’s (2000) study of
university history students, 40% of those questioned claimed to have never had a face-to-face
tutorial on their assessment work.
There is growing research interest in the use of formative assessment feedback (Eccle-
stone, 1998). Yet, despite the signiécant position that written feedback comments occupy in
students’ experiences, and that, today, an important purpose of assessment is considered to
be the improvement of student learning (Gipps, 1994), this area, surprisingly, remains
relatively underresearched—particularly from students’ perspectives.

Can Assessment Feedback ‘Work’?

In theory, formative assessment can, by providing feedback, help develop ‘deep learning’
among students (Biggs, 1999). For formative assessment to work in practice, feedback must
‘connect’ with students. But, at a time when student numbers are rising and competition for
graduate jobs is growing, are students increasingly becoming instrumental consumers, driven
by the extrinsic motivation of the mark? If so, will they heed written feedback which
encourages them to reèect on their learning? Or will they simply pay attention to the grade,
and seek feedback only when it is perceived to provide ‘correct answers’ to commit to
memory (and only then when their grade expectation has not been met)? This article tackles
these questions by building on existing thinking through our own research.

The Research Project

Our research focuses on students’ understandings of feedback. We conducted interviews with
students and administered a questionnaire. The interviews were semi-structured in nature,
allowing for èexibility in the subjects’ responses. They also enabled us to capture students’
own accounts of their experiences and understandings of assessment feedback (Patton,
1990), while at the same time keeping respondents focused on the topic at hand (Kvale,
1996). We were, therefore, able to examine students’ reactions to feedback in an exploratory
 Assessment Feedback in Student Learning 55

manner. Nineteen students from two different subject units (level 1 Business and level 1
Humanities) across two institutions (a pre- and post-92 university in the North of England)
took part in the interviews. The interviews were conducted towards the end of semester two,
when the students already had some initial (albeit limited) experience of feedback. The
students in our study are diverse in terms of age, gender and background, in addition to
studying different units at different institutions.
The questionnaire allowed us to generate quantiéable data (Bryman, 1988) and to
identify general trends in light of the themes emerging from the interviews. The value of using
both qualitative and quantitative methods has been recognised by many social researchers
(for example, see Bryman, 1988; Layder, 1998), as have, the particular advantages of
methodological triangulation in educational research (for example, see Parlett & Hamilton,
1972; Cohen et al., 2000; Hartley & Chesworth, 2000). The questionnaires were handed out
to students during lectures (again towards the end of semester two). We collected completed
questionnaires before the end of each lecture in order to maximise the response rate. We were
able to gain 94 responses (a 77% response rate).

The Context of Assessment

Before addressing what is perhaps the most important question—how do students respond to
their tutors’ comments?—it is necessary to érst ‘set the scene’. Formative assessment
feedback may be vital for learning, but in today’s institutions, the conditions may not be in
place for feedback to ‘work’ as we would want it to.
Firstly, students enrolled on modular degree programmes may experience heavy
workloads, affording them little time to reèect on feedback (Hounsell, 1984), partly a result
of the increased use of coursework assessment. They may énd themselves studying a diverse
range of short units. If the feedback they receive does not help them to improve generic skills,
but is instead focused solely on subject-speciéc aspects of assignments, then feedback may be
irrelevant for subsequent work on other units (Ding, 1998). Secondly, within modular degree
programmes, it is not uncommon for units to have come to an end long before assignments
are marked and returned. If feedback is not timely, students might not make the effort to go
back to the assignment, which may seem distant and remote (especially if a pass mark has
been gained) (MacKenzie, 1976).
There are also issues relating to the type of feedback students are given. A number of
authors have noted the variabilit y of tutors’ comments in terms of both quantity and quality
(MacKenzie, 1974; Connors & Lunsford, 1993; Creme & Lea, 1997; Higgins et al., 2000;
IvanicÏ et al., 2000). For example, while some comments can be very authoritarian, judgemen-
tal and detached, others may be very personal and empathetic. The students interviewed in
our research seemed all too aware how feedback comments can vary, depending on the
marker. But more often than not, our student interviews revealed negative experiences of
assessment feedback:
but some of it was like ‘this line is immature’ which wasn’t particularly useful in any
way … and the worst of it, the problem was that she didn’t specify what was wrong
with it, she just said ‘this line isn’t right’, ‘this is wrong’, ‘this is very good’, ‘this
introduction is unstructured’, but she didn’t say how it had become unstructured.
I’ve got things like ‘your essay is good as far as it goes’ and things like that and it’s
not particularly helpful because you don’t, it doesn’t tell you how far you could have
gone if you know what I mean. It just says ‘your essay is good as far as it goes, well
done’, and it’s, like, a comment that’s not particularly useful.
56 R. Higgins et al.

As well as lacking speciécity, comments can also be impersonal:

I think they should be more personal really ’cause quite a lot of the comments are
similar to what other people got, you know, just reproduce them. So in a way, if they
were more personal and direct then it would be more helpful.

These comments suggest that students in our study perceive feedback negatively if it does not
provide enough information to be helpful, if it is too impersonal, and if it is too general and
vague to be of any formative use. Handwriting also seems to be a common problem. For
example, 40% of our questionnaire respondents often énd feedback comments difécult to
read.
There may be numerous reasons for inconsistency and ‘poor quality’. The ways tutors
perceive both the role of feedback and their students are likely to inèuence what they provide.
For example (and while recognising that this is an oversimpliécation of the situation), some
tutors may wish to supply advice, while others will simply provide evaluative information as
a way of justifying the grade. Furthermore, some tutors may not see the point in attending
to the quality of their feedback comments if they are sceptical and cynical about whether
feedback is read at all (Ding, 1997). This latter perception may be compounded by tutors on
short units lacking the opportunity to see students’ future work, and to ascertain whether the
feedback they provided had any impact. But it may also stem from a belief that when, for
example, students do not take the opportunity given to them (by way of tutors’ oféce hours)
to seek further feedback, help and support, it is due to a lack of motivation or commitment.
In addition, tutors may not feel a need to produce detailed formative feedback for students
whose grades are satisfactory or of a high standard.
A further barrier to the use of formative feedback may be that some students increasingly
fail to understand the taken-for-granted academic discourses which underpin assessment
criteria and the language of feedback (Hounsell, 1987). According to Entwistle (1984, p. 1),
‘effective communication depends on shared assumptions, deénitions, and understanding’.
But a study at Lancaster University found that 50% of the third-year students in one
academic department were unclear what the assessment criteria were (Baldwin, 1993, cited
in Brown & Knight, 1994). As one of our students noted: ‘I haven’t got a clue what I’m assessed
on’.
This is perhaps not surprising if tutors’ assessments of work require qualitative judge-
ments in a learning environment where there are rarely either correct or incorrect answers
(Sadler, 1989). For Sadler, qualitative judgements usually involve multiple criteria, and at
least some of these criteria will be ‘fuzzy’. In other words, they will be abstract constructs
which have no absolute meaning independent of particular contexts. Consequently, teachers
may recognise a good performance, yet struggle to articulate exactly what they are looking for
because conceptions of quality usually take the form of tacit knowledge. So, the very language
of assessment criteria, and consequently of feedback comments, can be difécult for students
to grasp (Creme & Lea, 1997). The results of studies by Hounsell (1987), Orsmond et al.
(1996, 1997, 2000), Lillis (1997), Street & Lea, (1997), IvanicÏ (1998), Chanock, (2000),
Hartley & Chesworth (2000), echo the view that students often experience problems
interpreting the academic language underpinning assessment.
Our own research supports this suggestion. A concern for many of the students
interviewed was that comments are frequently either vague or too general. Often, feedback
comments employ the academic language used to express assessment criteria, but only 33%
of our respondents claimed to understand these criteria. An inability to fully comprehend the
meaning of assessment feedback may not necessarily prevent students from paying attention
 Assessment Feedback in Student Learning 57

TABLE I. Reading assessment feedback

Students indicating time spent reading comments (%)

I do not
5 minutes or 10–15 15–30 More than read the No
less minutes minutes 30 minutes feedback response

39 42 13 3 0 3

to tutors’ comments, since they may unknowingly interpret them incorrectly yet still attempt
to utilise them. Nevertheless, this will almost certainly present an obstacle for many.
In light of the potential barriers to the efécacy of formative feedback—including the
impact of modularisation, the inconsistency and sometimes poor quality of feedback, and the
often tacit nature of the language underpinning comments—we might expect students to
disregard tutors’ written advice. But is this the case?

Do Students Take Notice of Feedback?

Formative feedback comments can only be effective if students read and make use of them.
Most of the students involved in studies by Hyland (2000) and Ding (1998) seemed to read
tutors’ comments. Our questionnaire data reèect this (see Table I). The time spent reading
comments varies, with the majority of students claiming to spend less than 15 minutes doing
so (although, of course, our data do not tell us when this takes place or whether students
return to look at their feedback on more than one occasion). But, overall, 97% of students
indicated that they usually ‘read’ the written feedback they receive. Furthermore, we can see
from Table II that 82% of the students claimed to ‘pay close attention’ to feedback. The
interview data also support this:

I always look forward to seeing what they had to say.

Normally I get the grade and then look through the self-assessment and the tutor’s
assessment, read the comments and … see what comments he’s made on the essay.

This énding is reinforced by Hyland’s (2000) study. He noted that the majority of the
students involved (from a range of institutions) seemed to try (even if only occasionally) to
use comments for future assignments.

How Do Students Use Feedback?

But how might students ‘use’ assessment feedback? Ding (1998) claims that, in her study, a
number of the students did not seem to have made ‘good use’ of tutors’ comments. The

TABLE II. Responding to assessment feedback

Students Students neither Students

Response agree (%) agree nor disagree (%) disagree (%)

I pay close attention to the 82 14 4

comments I get
58 R. Higgins et al.

responses of many of the students in our study indicate a tendency to ‘bear comments in
mind’ for future work:
Well, I just try to take in what they’ve said as best you can, like, um, that’s obviously
a pointer for doing things in the future properly.
I probably would have read it [the feedback] so it would be in the back of my mind,
but I wouldn’t refer to it really closely or exactly or anything. I would probably be
aware of what I had to do, but not really, it wouldn’t be, like, in the forefront of my
mind or anything.
However, the situation may be complex. Although the two students here do not seem to use
feedback in the sense that they have it in front of them from a previous assignment when
constructing a new piece of work, reading it closely and attending to every comment, their
statements may imply a less ‘rigorous’ yet more ‘intuitive’ use of feedback. A more reèective
approach may have considerable beneéts if desirable learning involves the development of
reèective skills. Clearly though, this area requires further research.

Why Do Students Use Feedback?

Putting to one side problems of deéning and measuring the ‘use’ of feedback, our students
appear to want feedback because they feel they deserve it and because they recognise its
potential to be formative. Many of the students we questioned agreed that receiving feedback
is a matter of ‘fairness’. That is, if they make an effort to complete an assessment task, it is
only fair that the tutor makes an effort to provide feedback:
I mean it seems only fair really when you’ve spent the time writing the essay they
should give you some feedback back really.
A large number of the students in our study recognise that feedback comments are useful for
formative purposes: 80% disagreed with the statement ‘Feedback comments are not that
useful’. Many of those interviewed wanted tutors to highlight the strengths and weaknesses
of their work, and also placed importance on comments that provide guidance for improve-
ment:
The minimum I think you should get is a grade and at least three or four comments
on why you got that grade, how you can improve … you get little comments in the
margin but I expect to get them more fully explained at the bottom so you can look
down and see that you’ve done something that they don’t agree with or they think
isn’t very good, then you can look at the back and see that they’ve explained it a bit
more, and, like, the overall idea of where you’re at really and how you can get better.
I think it’s good to get the pluses—the good points, but to me to just get a mark is
not enough. I think one wants to know the weaknesses as well as the strengths and
where they can mend the weaknesses.
This énding is reèected elsewhere. Most of the students in Ding’s (1998) study, while
attributing much importance to grades, desired formative comments to supplement grades.
Some 90% of the students in Hyland’s (2000) study believed that feedback could help them
identify their strengths and weaknesses, engender a sense of achievement, and raise their
marks in future work. Hyland goes on to comment that the students ‘never seem to lose faith
in its [feedback’s] potential value’ (2000; p. 243), despite the problems they may encounter
when attempting to use it.
 Assessment Feedback in Student Learning 59

But what is it that is motivating them to seek improvement? Moreover, does the type of
motivation matter? We argue that it does. As already stated, there may be different ways of
reading and using feedback, and we anticipate that students’ motives for paying attention to
tutors’ comments will mediate the kinds of feedback comments they desire, and how and
under what circumstances they are likely to make use of them.

The Student as Consumer

In a study by Swann & Arthurs (1998), a large number of their students seemed to take an
instrumental view of learning, conceiving assessment tasks as obstacles to overcome in the
pursuit of grades. Formative feedback was viewed as a means to negotiate these obstacles. In
an earlier study by Becker et al. (1968) of American college life, assessment demands were
ubiquitous, and student behaviour reèected the instrumental and pragmatic strategies they
adopted to cope with the particular teaching and assessment practices imposed on them. But
is this true for today’s student in the context of the UK?
A majority of the students in our study perceive higher education as a ‘service’, and felt
that feedback constitutes part of that service. As one student noted:
They way I see it is we’re paying £1,000. It’s more of a service now.
If higher education is viewed as a service, then students are arguably the consumers of that
service. But what do they expect the service to consist of? Most students in our study link
feedback to attaining better grades. These students perceive feedback comments as identify-
ing what they are doing right and wrong and, therefore, helping them to improve their
performance in subsequent assessed assignments and examinations in order to raise their
marks:
Part of writing the essay question in the exam is having the right technique, and
whilst it would be useful to say that ‘yeah, you’re bringing in good parts outside the
subject and it’s good that you’ve brought in this’, it would also be good to know
‘well, don’t ever use this language in the exam ’cause it’s going to count against
you’.

The Student as a ‘Conscientious Consumer’

But if students are preoccupied with the grade, then the kind of feedback they would most
likely want (when their grade expectation has not been met) would surely be feedback telling
them speciécally what to do to improve their mark, rather then feedback which encourages
them to reèect on their learning. However, our data suggests that students are not as
instrumental and mechanistic as this (see also Higgins et al., 1999). Table III (based on our
questionnaire data) indicates that, although most of the students claim to be at university to
gain qualiécations, a large majority also claim to be at university because they enjoy learning.
This is reèected in many interview responses:
There is an enjoyment part of it—to get into it [the subject].
When you’re learning you’re not learning for someone else, you’re learning for
yourself. So it just comes down to your personal enjoyment.
Well, that’s what the point of it is for me.
The questionnaire also asked students to identify features of a ‘good assignment’ (see Table
IV). One of the most important features was considered to be ‘critical analysis’. In addition,
60 R. Higgins et al.

TABLE III. Why study in higher education?

Reasons for studying % students agreeing

The main reason I came to university was to gain qualiécations 92

I am at university because I enjoy learning 71

TABLE IV. What makes a good assignment?

Features of assignments rated as % of students rating each feature as

important by over 75% of students important

Demonstration of knowledge 97
Well structured 89
Critical analysis 89
Good style of writing 79

Note: égures are based on responses to a 5-point Likert scale (1–5, with 1
representing ‘very important’ and 5 representing ‘not at all important’). Responses
of 1 and 2 were judged to represent ‘important’.

TABLE V. What feedback is important?

Types of feedback comment rated as important by % of students rating each type

over 75% of students as important

Comments that tell you what you could do to improve 92

Comments that explain your mistakes 91
Comments that focus on the level of critical analysis 90
Comments that focus on your argument 89
Comments that focus on the tutor’s overall impressions 87
Comments that tell you what you have done badly 86
Comments that focus on the subject matter 82
Comments that correct your mistakes 80
Feedback that tells you the grade 79
Comments that focus on your use of supporting evidence 79

Note: see note to Table IV.

students were asked to rate different types of feedback comment (see Table V). Comments
rated as important by over 75% of respondents include those that indicate the grade, correct
mistakes and advise how the student can improve. However, comments that explain mistakes,
focusing on the level of argument and of critical analysis are also rated as important.
The importance of feedback focusing on argument is reèected in many of our interview
responses:

I would like them [feedback comments] to be more general about the entirety of the
essay—how it’s laid out and how the argument has been formed and how to make
it more clear, things like that.

The argument you’re making—they should make a comment on it.

So it seems that, while the students in our study want feedback to provide them with a grade,
they also desire feedback which focuses on generic, ‘deep’ skills. It is possible that this is
 Assessment Feedback in Student Learning 61

because they perceive skills such as ‘critical analysis’ and ‘argument’ to be valued by their
tutors and rewarded with high marks. But here we offer an alternative explanation. If students
are concerned simply with obtaining the grades they desire with minimum effort, then we
would expect them to adopt a ‘surface’ approach to learning (as outlined by Entwistle, 1987).
This is because a surface approach is most strongly correlated with ‘extrinsic motivation and
narrowly vocational concerns’ (Entwistle, 1987, p. 19), while intrinsic motivation (such as
interest in a subject area) is most strongly (and positively) correlated with a deep approach.
Our data suggest that the majority of students in our study are, at least to some extent,
intrinsically motivated and, as such, value feedback comments which focus on skills relating
to a deep approach to learning.

Discussion and Suggestions for Practice

At the beginning of this article, we outlined an argument for the importance of formative
assessment for supporting learning. We also argued that in the context of higher education
today, perhaps the most common opportunity for providing such feedback comes in the form
of written tutor comments at the end of students’ coursework assignments. But this raises a
fundamental question—even if formative assessment takes place and students receive feed-
back, does it make a difference? In theory it should (and Black & Wiliam’s [1998] meta-
analysis suggests that generally in practice it does), but to what extent is this really the case
in higher education today?
There are clearly a number of potential barriers to the effective provision and utility of
feedback comments which are, to some extent, outside of the student’s sphere of inèuence.
These may be ‘structural’ in nature—for example, a result of the impact of modular degree
programmes. Or they may relate to the nature of feedback that students are provided with in
terms of the quality, quantity and language used. But these factors become irrelevant if
students’ interests are conéned solely to the grade, and feedback is either disregarded or
sought only to provide a list of ‘correct answers’ for future assessment.
Our research suggests that, while the grade may be of paramount importance to
students, many of those we questioned are eager to read feedback comments. They expect
feedback because they believe they deserve it—if they have made an effort to produce the
assignment, it is only fair that the tutor makes an effort to provide feedback. Furthermore,
there is a perception that higher education is a service and, as such, it is also the tutor’s ‘duty’
to offer feedback. This latter point links to the notion of the student as a ‘consumer’, but this
does not necessarily square with a notion of the student as consumer driven solely by the
extrinsic motivation of the mark.
It may be difécult, in the light of increasing competitiveness for graduate jobs, for
students not to have ‘one eye on the grade’. But while there may well be an increasing level
of consumerism within higher education, the argument that feedback will be ignored or only
used if it provides ‘correct answers’ cannot be sustained. Rather, it is more likely that many
of today’s students have a ‘consumerist awareness’ reèected in a focus on achieving a grade
alongside intrinsic motivations. As a result, they may recognise the central importance of
formative feedback for their educational development.
How students use feedback is, however, another matter. Clearly, the notion of ‘use’ in
this context is complex and needs to be understood as occurring in different ways, with some
students perhaps adhering closely to every comment, while others reèect in a less conscious
manner on a small selection of points which they have stored ‘at the back of their mind’. At
present, this issue requires further investigation.
62 R. Higgins et al.

Nevertheless, the good news may be that, despite barriers to its use, the potential for
formative feedback to improve student learning remains. But, to make the most of students’
enthusiasm for feedback and allow formative assessment to work, tutors need to take account
of the following. Firstly, while recognising institutional constraints and difécult workloads,
timely feedback is vital; comments should be returned to students as soon as possible after
the assignment is submitted. Interim feedback on a érst draft or an essay plan might also be
productive. Secondly, it is not usually sufécient simply to tell a student where they have gone
wrong—misconceptions need to be explained and improvements for future work suggested.
Nor should comments focus solely on spelling and grammar. Fostering ‘higher order’ critical
skills may have more long-term educational value. Moreover, students may not view com-
ments on ‘surface’ aspects of their work as particularly relevant or useful. In addition,
providers of feedback cannot assume that the language they use is inherently meaningful to
students. As one of us has suggested elsewhere, frequently ‘tutors base their feedback on
implicit values and vocabulary that often mean nothing to the student’ (Higgins, cited in
Utley, 2000). Perhaps the introduction of some element of peer assessment may help
students to become more familiar with the meanings of the criteria upon which their work is
evaluated (although much care must be taken when designing peer assessment strategies if
their potential is to be realised (see Reynolds & Trehan, 2000)). Discussion between tutors
and students about tutors’ expectations may also help as might more open dialogue between
tutors themselves to prevent students receiving conèicting advice based on different meanings
across disciplines (Higgins et al., 2001).
Our éndings should be treated tentatively. While this article provides a useful starting
point for identifying and analysing the issues involved in the provision and utility of tutors’
feedback comments, the meaning and impact of assessment feedback for students is an area
that still remains relatively underresearched, particularly from the students’ perspective. As
MacKenzie (1976, p. 58) stated 26 years ago, ‘much remains to be known, in any detail,
about the average student’s use of his [sic] tutor’s comments’. This apparently remains the
case today, yet, as we have demonstrated, there is clearly room for improvement.
We need to develop a clearer picture of how exactly students use feedback. We must also
investigate further students’ abilities to understand the academic discourses upon which the
language of feedback is often based. We need to develop a better understanding of the
student–feedback and student–tutor relationships, whilst recognising that there are complex
tensions between students’ motivations, their approaches to assessment, the variable feedback
they are presented with, and their attempts to utilise comments. Furthermore, we need to
understand how tensions between being grade-sensitive, and being motivated by a desire to
engage with higher education at a ‘deep’ level are played out in students’ lives—or in other
words, to understand what it means to be a conscientious consumer.

Correspondence: Richard Wiggins, Learning and Teaching Institute, Sheéeld Hallam Univer-
sity, Adselts Centre, City Campus, Howard Street, Sheféeld SI 1WB, UK; e-mail:
[email protected]

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