Feedback, marking schemes and proforma

This resource forms part of a set of resources written by Karen Clegg (Graduate Training Unit, University of York) which are designed to help law teachers to adapt and improve their assessment practice.

Here, Karen looks at feedback, marking schemes and proforma. See related pages in the toolbar on the right to view Karen’s other assessment resources. Links to examples of law school feedback proforma and tools for use in the classroom are included, as well as prompt questions to help you think about how to use the case examples in your own teaching. UKCLE is extremely grateful to those who were kind enough to share their work and encourages other law schools to submit their own examples so that law teachers can learn from each other.

Formative feedback is crucial to student learning. As illustrated in our introduction to assessment in legal education it frames student learning and makes the difference between good and poor satisfaction with the system.

Dunbar-Goddet and Gibbs (2007) suggest that in order to improve the student learning experience programmes should consider “increasing the volume of formative assessment, reducing delays in providing feedback and providing more oral feedback. Delays in providing feedback, feedback of limited quantity and quality, are to some extent a function of variability tutors and quality assurance could usefully focus on specifying and checking on quality standards for feedback.”

Enabling this efficient, fast and high quality assessment is often difficult, and many teachers have now adopted the use of feedback proforma to help them give written feedback to students. Below are examples submitted by law schools.

Resources

The assignment feedback form from the University of Wolverhampton School of Legal Studies enables law tutors to feedback on areas such as structure, content, originality, style, presentation, use of sources and language. This is done on a six point scale (1 – outstanding to 6 – unsatisfactory). Tutors can insert additional comments where appropriate. One of the main reasons for the development of the proforma is to assist staff who teach on core subjects with a high volume of marking in giving the student optimum feedback. The School are keen to emphasise that this is a work in progress, and would welcome feedback and examples from other law schools.

The Wolverhampton assignment feedback form can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.

The University of Hull Law School has recently undertaken an evaluation of their feedback system and implemented a new approach aimed at improving the formative feedback given to students. Under the new system all law students will receive individual feedback on work submitted prior to the final assessment and will receive ‘global’ feedback (a summary of the quality of the work submitted by all students) on all final assessments. To help deliver this commitment the law teachers have developed three proforma. The proforma for the dissertation and essay problems use the same criteria – structure, knowledge, analysis, research, referencing, and suggestions for improvements. The proforma for the problem also requires student to have indentified relevant issues and illustrated how they applied the rules to the facts.

Feedback forms used by the University of Hull Law School can be downloaded at the bottom of the page, along with their policy on feedback.

The example from the University of East London School of Law is less tightly structured. The tutor is prompted to give feedback about good points, areas for improvement and general comments.

The University of East London School of Law coursework submission form can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.

Anglia Ruskin University requires students to submit a cover sheet with their assignments, and there is a free space for tutors to provide comments.

Anglia Ruskin University’s assignment cover sheet can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.

The Student Enhanced Learning through Effective Feedback (SENLEF) project provides a range of resources for teachers looking to improve their feedback. Enhancing student learning through effective formative feedback outlines seven principles for good feedback and offers constructive advice on how to achieve this. None of the case studies in the document are specifically related to law, but it provides food for thought and some easy to implement ideas, such as getting your students to highlight two useful pieces of feedback they have received and to highlight what they have done differently as a result.

Those looking to run workshops for staff or to get their students thinking about assessment may wish to consider using the Higher Education Academy’s Assessment and feedback video clips of students talking about what they do with feedback and use this as the basis for discussion.

The Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange (ASKe) has developed a number of useful freely available resources – or 1,2,3 leaflets – designed to support assessment, which can be downloaded as PDF files from their website.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010