As a an academic, one of the most meaningful things we can do is provide feedback that truly helps our students grow. I adopted the Action Feedback Protocol a while ago and it has really helped me to deliver a much better quality of feedback to the student, in a way that uses less of my time thinking what to say. 

Any feedback that we give - to our students or to those we manage and lead - needs to be actionable if it is to be valuable. For students in particular, when they feel supported and empowered to act on their feedback, that’s when real learning happens.

The AFP gives me clarity of structure. Even as I am marking, I am thinking about how I am going to address the three points that I know I will need to make at the end - what the student did well, where they could have done better, and how they can improve in the future. For those of our students who are writing their last assessment, in the form of their dissertation, this final part will be suggestions that they can take into their future professional life.

And that, of course, is what we are all here for — to support students not just in the now, but in becoming the professionals they are capable of being.

At the Association of National Teaching Fellows conference I attended  a presentation that Dr Andrew MacLaren gave on the Action Feedback Protocol. I remember the phrase he used about student feedback literacy and how we tend to over-innovate as academics when it comes to feedback. He said, ‘it’s like we’re designing running shoes for babies!’ This stuck in my mind and so did the apparent ease with which I could adopt the Action Feedback Protocol in my own teaching. I decided to implement the AFP into my large compulsory first-year course for Biology students at the University of Edinburgh, for which I have a large marking team of post-graduate student demonstrators and felt we were in need of a clearer, more streamlined approach.

I found the simplicity of the AFP to be highly effective in allowing me to deliver substantive, specific, supportive feedback in a timely manner. It also reduced marking time and, because my marking team was following the protocol, it made calibrating and benchmarking our feedback so straightforward. This, therefore, not only enabled me to deliver a consistent well-managed approach to assessment, but it meant I was simultaneously doing some personal development work with more junior colleagues many of whom were new to marking.  The protocol provided a simple structure and common language for me to easily highlight where their feedback had strayed from the format and how they might adjust it to make it more effective. I was impressed by how quickly and well the demonstrators understood and adopted the practice.

I also believe that the simplicity of this feedback strategy helped us to empower students to take ownership of their learning without overwhelming them. It was highly reassuring to have the evidence-based AFP system as support for making this change which also made the marking task easier for all.

Key takeaways

1. One of the key strengths of the Action Feedback Protocol is its simplicity

2. Using this approach can help to upskill more junior colleagues who are new to providing feedback

3. By using this method of providing feedback, students were empowered without being overwhelmed

Although in a way I felt I'd set myself a huge task in marking 200 proposals alongside three full weeks teaching, it was possible. More importantly I enjoyed the process and felt that it allowed me to work much better to my subject speciality (whereas I have previously felt on quite shaky ground trying to make recommendations about subject content and theory). Perhaps most relevantly, I think the discipline for the marker in needing to prioritise areas for the students to consider to a single topic in each category is very positive, both in terms of time efficiency for marker and student, and in identifying really clear focus for development.

I am reassured by the research that has gone into making this a simple and workable system, and I realise that much of my practice since the introduction of online marking was informed by fairly anecdotal suggestions that students wanted a lot of in-text comments to assure them that their work had been read thoroughly. This system is the first approach to marking I can think of that has really shifted the onus onto the students to use and learn from their feedback through their own actions - I am very aware that so much of what I've written previously has not been acted on.

Assessment and Feedback has been an area of key strategic focus for the University of Edinburgh for a number of years. As an Academic Developer, part of my role involves providing a platform for colleagues to come together, share best practice, and inspire others. As the literature on academic development shows, when inspiring colleagues to make changes in their curriculum, it’s important that they first trust in the capabilities and integrity of the speaker or expert they are listening to (Little and Greenwood, 2021). 

I first heard Dr Andrew MacLaren talk about the Action Feedback Protocol (AFP) as part of the National Teaching Fellows conference in April 2024. Listening to Andrew, I was inspired by the simplicity of the message at the heart of the AFP and felt it resonated strongly with my own experiences of giving feedback, particularly the frustrations I’d experienced when the same mistakes continued to appear in students’ work. I invited Andrew to come and speak at the University of Edinburgh, confident that the AFP was likely to resonate positively with colleagues, potentially leading to changes in the way they thought about their own approach to assessment and feedback. I was further encouraged by the fact that a small-scale pilot of the AFP had already been running with a couple of colleagues at the University of Edinburgh. 

Did it work? 

Andrew agreed to host a session on the AFP as part of a Network that I run called the Engage Network. The Engage Network aims to bring together University of Edinburgh students and staff interested in creating genuine and meaningful interactions between staff and students focused on learning, teaching and assessment. For me, the Engage Network was a perfect fit for the AFP given that a key aspect is around enabling students to ‘tune the ear’. In other words, helping students to understand that they must play an active role in reflecting on and acting upon their feedback. From my perspective as an academic developer, creating spaces for staff and students to come together and discuss ideas and practice is crucial. There are a number of ways this can be achieved, from liaising with course reps, to working in partnership with the Students’ Association, to co-creating part of the curriculum. The sparqs website provides more information about how you can work in partnership with students. 

Feedback on the session shows that those in attendance found the AFP really useful: ‘The whole presentation was excellent, but the practical toolkit was particularly helpful’, and that for some it was already helping them to reflect on their own practice: ‘It made me appreciate the need for a shared framework and language between students and staff with regards to assessment feedback’. 

Key takeaways 

1. Creating space for an open dialogue between students and staff strengthens assessment and feedback practices 

2. Impactful and simple messaging can inspire colleagues to make changes to their own practices 

3. Partnership working across universities works to the benefit of both staff and students