Research Question
The central enquiry driving this project is: How can shared assessment literacy between students and staff improve the experience, recognition, and impact of formative feedback in art school contexts?
The work responds to challenges frequently raised in student feedback: that formative assessment is difficult to identify, feels disconnected from project outcomes, or lacks clarity around meaning and purpose.
Methods
The poster synthesises early findings from a partnership project undertaken at the Glasgow School of Art. A student consultant was appointed to explore student and staff perceptions of feedback and assessment through a coproduced project using interviews, literature review, and collaborative reflection.
A series of thematic provocations emerged from these conversations, visualised in the poster through call-and-response dialogue fragments. These reflect common disconnects, such as the difference between how feedback is intended versus how it is received and structural and emotional complexities in assessment. The format prioritises student voice, shared language, and staff prompts to support inclusive reflection and practice change.
The themes are grounded in literature on feedback literacies (Pitt & Winstone, 2023), compassionate assessment (Salines et al., 2022), and situated critique (Orr & Bloxham, 2013).
Context of Contribution
Presented at GSA’s Learning and Teaching Conference on 10 June 2025, this poster formed part of the strand Empowering Staff to Support Student Success in Partnership with Students. It acted as a touchpoint for discussions about feedback across departments and framed future activities in the wider feedback literacy project, including resource development and staff workshops.
As a visual artefact, the poster continues supporting dialogue by making visible the often unspoken or ambiguous feedback practices within creative education.