…we’ve been rather busy. We’re pleased to welcome James Ricketts to the project team as our student lead. James will introduce himself in due course, but one of his key roles will be engaging the wider student body in the research. Meanwhile we’ve gone through the process of applying for ethical approval for the research and tying down, as a team, what the key priorities are. We identified talking to staff as a good place to start – eager to discover their perceptions of what constitutes feedback and the problems associated with the feeback/assessment loop – both from their perspective and their perspective of what the students think. A focus group was held with staff and we’re following this up with some individual one-to-one discussions. Our work has been interrupted slightly by the long 4-week Easter break but the plan thereafter is to begin discussions with students about their experience of feedback and assessment. We’ll post again when this is underway.

Creative Difference is a Higher Education Academy funded project looking at feedback and assessment in Fine Art. Recent research, as well as student responses to the National Student Survey, have identified this as a problematic area within creative practice. So what we’re setting out to do is, through a case study of an assessment called Open Studios (more about that later), look at how we can improve modes of feedback and assessment to maximise the effectiveness of the feedback/assessment relationship. We’re also interested in what both staff and students perceive to be feedback, as creative practitioners learn in a range of environments and from a range of people, and along the way we’re hoping to test some alternative ways students might capture and apply feedback.

Open Studios is an innovative form of assessment which is geared to be more transparent, student-centred and inclusive. Basically, the students select work for assessment which they have to present, as professionally as possible, within their studio space. Around this there are discussions with peers, staff and invited experts as well as an assessment, by staff, of the student work. In this context, feedback takes both written and oral forms, and the assessment itself builds upon a series of interactions throughout the semester that could be considered ‘feedback.’ So we’ll be investigating this, analysing it, taking it apart and putting it back together again, but not necessarily in the same way.

For more information on the ‘we’ involved click the About tab above, but the team includes an artist, academic, and specialist learning advisors. We’re shortly going to be recruiting students to the project and we’ll introduce them when they’re on board. We are also interested in engaging with interested parties in other institutions so if you’d like to be involved in the research e-mail: venda.pollock@ncl.ac.uk, and if you want to be kept informed then just keep an eye on the blog.

More soon.