Assessment Criteria and Feedback Mechanisms for Individual Learners Learning Styles and Developmental Needs

The role of summative assessment is vital in providing good quality, competent, safe healthcare professionals to enter into employment with institutional accountability and for these reasons summative assessment cannot be avoided. However, relying solely on summative assessment limits the value of feedback for learning as well as for self-assessment and peer assessment (The Higher Education Academy, 2012).

Bound and Mollow (cited in Nicola-Richmond et al., 2015) define feedback as ‘a process whereby learners obtain information about their work in order to appreciate the similarities and differences between the appropriate standards for any given work, and the qualities of the work itself, in order to generate improved work’. Feedback is thought to be one, if not the most important element of the process of assessment and also contributes to understanding and achieving lifelong learning. Students who understand the assessment and feedback process will learn better (McKevitt, 2016).

Formative assessment, for learning is designed to provide information for the student and the teacher and then allow the student and teacher to respond to this for further learning to occur. As part of the assessment process students can be provided with the assessment criteria/rubric for how they will be assessed which promotes transparency and gives the student an opportunity to assess their own work. The ability for self-assessment as well as peer-assessment is an important skill for employment (McKevitt, 2016; The Higher Education Academy, 2012).  


Ferguson (cited in McKevitt, 2016) found students liked feedback best when it was related to clear and understandable criteria, personal and provided in a timely fashion. Providing personal and timely feedback is not always easy, and it can be a challenge for educators to provide this within the logistical constrains of higher education teaching. (Nicola-Richmond et al., 2015; The Higher Education Academy, 2012).

Feedback can take a number of different forms, traditionally feedback is expected as written comments but to improve student satisfaction with their received feedback it is important for them to acknowledge feedback given in other forms, for example in simulation assessments sessions can be videoed and then reviewed with the student, as well as feedback being offered in audio format and to an individual or in a group setting (Roberts, 2012; The Higher Education Academy, 2012).

(PAEI- Structures of Concern, 2008)

Despite the extensive positive literature surrounding the use of formative feedback as a tool for assessment for learning and to promote lifelong learning, there is some associated negativity. For example, there is a worry that by increasing numbers of assessment, in view of introducing more formative assessment and feedback that we may be increasing causing a negative effect by increasing the students’ workload (Martos-Garcia, Usabiaga & Valenica-Peris, 2017).

To improve the usefulness of feedback, tutors could ask students what type of feedback they would like as how people learn affects how feedback should be offered and received. Honey and Mumford developed 4 distinct learning styles based on the work of Kolb: Activist, Theorist, Pragmatist and Reflector ( McKevitt, 2016;  University of Leicester, n.d.).



Activists learn by doing (University of Leicester, n.d.).  An activist may learn best from feedback by ‘having a go’ at the assessment, and then being offered regular formative feedback prior to a summative assessment.

Theorists like to understand the theory behind the actions (University of Leicester, n.d.). A theorist may benefit from understanding how their feedback came about rather than just a number of stand-alone pointers on improvement. To facilitate theorists it could be useful to make them familiar with an assessment rubric/assessment criteria prior to the assessment, either formative or summative.

Pragmatists need to be able to see how to put learning into practice in the real world (University of Leicester, n.d.). They may learn best using case-studies or simulation. They should be offered feedback that can be used to ‘feed forward’ and promotes lifelong learning, which will be relevant in the real world of their career in healthcare.

Reflectors are people who learn by observing and thinking about what happened. They would rather avoid leaping in but first watch from the side-lines (University of Leicester, n.d.). Reflectors may benefit from having access to previous students work/examples to observe and think about prior an assessment.