Investigating the relationships between the feedback practices of lecturers and students in the context of assessment and learning within a postgraduate business school

It is commonly agreed that feedback is a key component of higher education and critical for learning. Despite decades of research problems with feedback are still reported. Lecturers and students describe issues with feedback such as, timing, quality, usefulness, use of, effectiveness, and recipience. There are also differences between lecturers’ and students’ perceptions of feedback as well as among students and lecturers. The last two decades of research have repositioned feedback from something provided to students, to an ongoing dialogic process, with a focus on the development of feedback literacy. Whilst there is a growing body of research focusing on the feedback literacy of students and more recently lecturers, the effect of student and lecturer interactions is under researched. In particular, the interrelationship of student and lecturer feedback practices and its influence on the feedback process and feedback literacy. The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of lecturers’ and students’ feedback practices and the relationship between these practices. A better understanding of feedback practices highlighted the importance of involving students and lecturers in the development of the feedback process, and a way of aligning understandings of feedback. The research study was designed to answer the questions: How do feedback practices affect lecturers’ and students’ conceptions of feedback and the feedback process? How do the interrelationships between students’ and lecturers’ feedback practices and the arrangements that constitute these practices, affect the feedback process?