Medical students feedback

Principal applicant: Dr David Hope

Team members:

• Dr Helen Cameron
• Professor Jamie Davies

Abstract

Recent research in the medical school has identified several limitations in our current feedback. Firstly academic performance is unrelated to feedback satisfaction which suggests improving feedback satisfaction will not necessarily improve performance. Secondly, underperforming-students are strongly underrepresented among respondents to questionnaires and events discussing feedback, so we have little knowledge of the specific needs of such students.

This project is designed to improve current practices in three ways. Firstly, by developing our understanding of what causes satisfaction with feedback we will be able to focus our efforts on activities likely to improve it. Secondly, we will target underperforming students specifically so as to gain as much information on their needs as possible. Thirdly, we will conduct a randomised trial comparing two recent innovations in exam feedback - specific detailed feedback on every question vs. a breakdown of scores for each major area - in order to determine which approach is-most worth pursuing.

Final project report

The final project report may be downloaded below:

Further outcomes of project

The following are Powerpoint presentations, referred to in the final project report, given as examples of dissemination arising from work on this project.