From receiving to using feedback: Building students’ feedback lilteracy

A major challenge was low attendance at the standalone Year 1 feedback literacy sessions. Although timetabled, students may not have viewed them as core teaching, may have been reluctant to travel to campus just for these sessions, or may have felt they already had sufficient feedback skills. More broadly, students did not always understand what feedback literacy meant or appreciate feedback as a tool for learning. Several steps were taken to improve engagement, including scheduling sessions alongside other teaching, promoting them through programme communications, highlighting their benefits, and renaming them more clearly. However, attendance remained low, suggesting that practical changes alone were not enough. A key lesson was that students are more likely to engage when feedback literacy is clearly tied to immediate assessment needs. This points to the importance of embedding such activities more directly within the curriculum and linking them to tasks where students can immediately apply what they learn. 

The BSc Medical Biosciences programme has introduced feedback literacy sessions to help students engage more effectively with feedback and use it to improve future work. This is particularly important for students transitioning into higher education, where feedback expectations differ from those in secondary education and where students are expected to take greater responsibility for acting on feedback. The sessions aim to help students understand feedback processes, recognise barriers to engagement, manage emotional responses, interpret marking criteria, and develop practical strategies for applying feedback to support ongoing learning and self-regulation. 

End-of-session survey responses suggest that students found the feedback literacy sessions valuable and relevant. They particularly appreciated the opportunity to revisit and reflect on their feedback, receive practical guidance on how to engage with it more effectively, and hear authentic perspectives from third-year students. In Session 1, students highlighted the usefulness of working with rubrics, understanding the feedback loop, and reflecting on the emotional side of receiving feedback. They also valued revisiting earlier formative feedback with a new perspective. In Session 2, students found the panel discussion with third-year students especially insightful, noting that it helped them understand how feedback can be used over time. Other helpful aspects included learning about feedback journals, categorising feedback, and being encouraged to take a more active role in seeking out and using feedback. Overall, the sessions appear to have supported both reflection and practical engagement. 

This intervention consists of a series of feedback literacy sessions embedded at key points across the undergraduate BMB programme to help students engage more effectively with feedback and use it to improve future work. The sessions are timed strategically: in Year 1, the first takes place after students receive formative feedback on their first assignment, while a second session at the end of the year consolidates feedback practices and encourages longer-term habits. In Year 2, a single session is embedded within a core module and is closely aligned with a formative lab report assessment. 

Across the programme, the sessions are designed to be interactive and practical rather than purely explanatory. Students work with anonymised feedback excerpts, rubrics, and in some cases their own feedback, using structured activities to develop skills in interpreting, organising, and acting on comments. A central aim is to move students away from seeing feedback as something they passively receive and towards seeing it as a resource they can analyse, discuss, and apply. 

The Year 1 sessions focus on building foundational feedback literacy. The first introduces the concept of feedback literacy through discussion and reflection on how feedback differs across educational contexts, especially in higher education where students are expected to take greater responsibility for responding to feedback. Students explore common barriers to engagement, including emotional reactions, uncertainty about how to act, and an over-focus on grades. They are encouraged to reflect on these challenges and consider strategies for managing them. The session also introduces the idea of the feedback loop and helps students use rubrics to interpret and categorise feedback more meaningfully. The second Year 1 session focuses on practical feedback management strategies, such as tagging, colour-coding, classification tools, and the use of a feedback portfolio to identify recurring themes across modules. It also includes a panel discussion with Year 3 students to highlight the longer-term value of feedback practices. 

The Year 2 session is more explicitly tied to assessment and action planning. Students work directly with formative feedback on a scientific report, categorise comments using one of two frameworks, discuss themes with peers, and receive clarification and support from supervisors. The session culminates in prioritising key points for improvement and planning how to apply feedback to the linked summative task. Overall, the intervention aims to normalise active feedback engagement, promote self-regulation, and help students develop sustainable feedback practices for both academic and professional contexts.

• Embed feedback literacy within the curriculum
  Feedback literacy develops over time, so it is most effective when built into modules and assessment design rather than offered as a one-off standalone session. Embedding it across a core module creates repeated opportunities for students to interpret, apply, and reflect on feedback, supporting a continuous cycle of improvement.
• Ensure relevance and clear purpose 
  Students are more likely to engage when they understand why feedback literacy matters and can see how it supports academic success, future learning, and professional development. Making this connection explicit helps students view feedback engagement as a core part of assessment rather than an optional extra.
• Align sessions with assessment timelines 
  Feedback literacy activities are most useful when timed around key assessment points, especially after feedback is released and before students begin a related task. This allows students to apply strategies immediately and reinforces the practical value of engaging with feedback at the point it is most relevant.
• Provide opportunities for practical application 
  Students need structured chances to work actively with their own feedback, for example by analysing comments, creating action plans, or revising work. These activities help bridge the gap between understanding feedback and using it to improve future performance.
• Evaluate impact and support continuous enhancement 
  Collecting student feedback on sessions and monitoring engagement data can help identify what is working well and where further development is needed. Using this evidence to refine activities ensures that feedback literacy provision remains relevant, effective, and responsive to student needs.