The Impact of Getting Comments on One’s Work – and a Score

From the Marshall Memo #490

In his new book, Embedded Formative Assessment (Solution Tree, 2011), British researcher Dylan Wiliam compares the impact of three ways of giving students feedback on math homework:

1. Giving students a score;

2. Giving students constructive feedback – specific comments on errors, suggestions on how to improve, and at least one positive remark;

3. Giving students constructive feedback and a score.

Students in the second group learned twice as fast as students in the first. But students in the third group (comments and a score) made no progress. Those with the highest scores felt no need to read the comments and those with the lowest scores didn't want to read the comments. The score was all they remembered.

[Could the same dynamic apply to teachers if the comments they get after administrators’ classroom visits are accompanied by rubric scores?  K.M.]

From The Main Idea’s summary of Embedded Formative Assessment by Dylan Wiliam (Solution Tree Press, 2011)

From the Marshall Memo #490