Does formal workplace based assessment add value to informal feedback?

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Feedback is a key component of learning but effective feedback is a complex process with many aspects. One aspect may be a written summary which is passed to the learner but this may not be valued by learners. We examined the role of written feedback in the feedback process to determine whether it does more than provide a simple summary of the interaction. We conducted a secondary analysis of data gathered for a study of formative workplace based assessment. Interview data from 24 interviews with students and written summaries of workplace based assessments for 23 of them were reanalysed by two researchers who were already immersed in the data and examined all references to verbal, informal feedback and written, formal feedback or the assessment tool used. We found that students valued the verbal feedback discussion highly and that they often considered the written summaries superfluous. We also found that the act of preparing written feedback augmented the feedback discussion and tutors had adopted the language of the formal instrument in the verbal feedback and free text written feedback. What this study adds to existing research is evidence that there may be a secondary faculty development effect of requiring the preparation of written feedback which has served to enhance the educational content of feedback. Although this is not proof of causality (the requirement to provide written feedback alone producing the positive effects), we consider that the likelihood is sufficiently strong to continue the practice.