Comments from a student with a mark lower than expected
This student was disappointed by the mark obtained 'because of all the work put in.' A common reason for disappointment is that students feel that they should be rewarded for the amount of time and effort they put into their work and often do not appreciate that the marks are given for the appropriateness of the content.
S/he commented, 'I firmly believe that good feedback is fundamental to increasing one's ability to learn effectively. I believe that better feedback from the start of the degree would have given me the direction I badly needed and the confidence to try new approaches.'
"This exercise has been a useful one, and will have an impact on future learning purely from the fact that spending more time contemplating the weaknesses in my writing will undoubtedly improve it. Admittedly something I fail to do enough."
Comments from another student with a mark as expected: 'Whilst feedback is always useful and appreciated, it can be of limited value because often by the time it is received most essays have been written. There is a tendency to just look at where one went wrong specifically to that essay and not to look at how criticisms might be applied to other subjects.'
"Doing this assignment forced the thought of how feedback given might be used in more general terms in future, and so proved extremely helpful. From now on I will try to write more generic action plans from all feedback received and keep them to refer to when writing future assignments."
And from another student: 'I found this particular exercise to be more time consuming than it is worth and hence not very useful. It is my last assignment in the final year and would have been more useful if you were asked to rewrite the essay.'
