Understanding student learning from feedback Stuart Hepplestone and Gladson Chikwa Sheffield Hallam University Quality Enhancement & Student Success Technology Enhanced Learning Team Email: S.J.Hepplestone@shu.ac.uk Executive summary Sheffield Hallam University explored the subconscious processes that students use to engage with, act upon, store and recall feedback, in order to inform and evaluate how technology can support deliberate actions as a result of receiving feedback. The study found that students understand what feedback is and how it should be used. However, the study highlighted that students often struggle to make connections between the feedback that they receive and future assignments, and further investigation into how tutors construct the feedback given and how students deconstruct that feedback would be beneficial to understanding how to encourage students to apply their feedback to future learning and assessments. The project began with a detailed desk-based review of current literature regarding good feedback practice with specific regard to the use of technology to enable and support deliberate actions as a result of receiving feedback. The main study used qualitative methods and worked in partnership with seven undergraduate students to articulate the processes that they use to engage with, act upon, recall and store their feedback, including the strategies that they use to feed forward into future learning, and how technology might help them to use feedback more effectively. Twitter was used to capture every instance of student interaction with feedback, and weekly diaries were kept to capture a detailed and reflective account of the nature and use of feedback. An end-of-study interview enabled students to articulate their understanding of their own experiences and to analyse the differences in how they interact with different forms of feedback. Students clearly understood the purpose of feedback, recognised the wide variety of feedback that they received, and demonstrated that they had clear expectations about feedback. Students valued the feedback that they received and made efforts to internalise and store feedback for future use. Students applied feedback where links could be made to future learning, however this was limited to superficial connections (e.g. similar assignment type), and there was no clear evidence that students attempted to make deeper connections, simply expressing that content- or assignment-specific feedback was difficult to apply. Students highlighted the logistical benefits of technology in supporting the feedback process (e.g. quicker turnaround of feedback), particularly where mobile technologies give them flexible access to their feedback and enables prompt dialogue about their feedback with tutors regardless of location. Technology did not enable students to make explicit connections between feedback and future learning, although students were using social media to gain early feedback on ideas from peers to feed forward into their final submissions.