Peer-feedback emerges as a highly effective practice due to its potential to improve learning (Liu & Carless, 2006), facilitate self-regulation processes (Aijawi & Bound, 2018; Brown, Peterson, & Yao, 2016; Panadero & Brown, 2017), to allow students to improve current and future pieces of work (Bevan, Badge, Wilmott, & Scott, 2008,), and support collaborative learning (Phielix, Prins, & Krischner, 2010).

In Higher Education (HE), feedback appears as a valuable way to facilitate students’ development as independent learners who are able to monitor, evaluate and regulate their own learning (Evans, 2013). According to recent studies, feedback has been defined not only as a dialogic process in which assessor and assesses interacts (Boud & Molloy 2013; Carless 2015), but also as a “process through which learners make sense of information from various sources and use it to enhance their work or learning strategies” (Carless & Boud, 2018:1).

In order to maximize the impact of feedback on students learning, a several conditions have to be put in place, considering the role of agents involved in feedback provision and reception, the content of comments, the number of feedback loops, and the design of task (Winstone et al., 2017). In addition, the impact of feedback is not equally for all students involved across all circumstances and the understanding of the conditions which make students learning benefit more appears as imperative (Ion, Sanchez, & Agud, 2018).

The existing research has investigated various issues of feedback, identifying several factors that influence the students’ engagement with feedback processes. The literature focuses on the contextual factors in case of feedback provided by the teacher (see Goldstein, 2004; Yang & Carless, 2013; among others), but less attention has received the study of contextual factors in peer-feedback situations.

The context in where feedback process takes place is a unique combination of factors related to the study programme and the factors that teachers and students bring to the process, as well (Goldstein, 2004). When lecturers plan feedback processes must keep in mind individual and contextual factors that could guarantee a positive impact on students’ learning (Boud & Falchikov, 2007). Fostering the feedback uptake and closing the feedback loops is facilitated by focusing not only on the assessment process, but considering the teaching and learning as a whole, and the assessment and feedback as components organically integrated in the curriculum design (Boud & Molloy, 2013).

As described above, the feedback is a complex process and the its impact on students learning is associated to a wide variety of conditions. These conditions are underpinned the main objectives of this study:

1)      Identify what curricular design interventions are associated to the students learning.

2)      Analyse the differences between experiences and giving and receiving feedback.

The findings will reveal how different learning scenarios and conditions could influence students learning through peer-feedback and will represent an evidence to inform educational practices using peer-feedback as learning tool.

To pursue the study objectives, a longitudinal study has been developed during two consecutive courses of the Bachelors’ Degree Programmes in Teacher Education and two different learning experiences.

The first experience (E1 from now on) was implemented in a long-term mandatory course of the first academic year of the Bachelor’s Degree. Students developed a long-term feedback with three loops in which they gave and received written peer-feedback. After receiving feedback, the group had a week to incorporate suggestions and submit the final report to the lecturer. The second experience (E2 from now on) was implemented during the second year in a mandatory course in the first term of the academic year. During E2 students developed a short-term and one loop experience. During three weeks in groups of 4-5 students had to: 1) develop a task, 2) give and received peer-feedback of their draft, 3) improve the task, and 4) deliver the final project. To evaluate the students learning through feedback, we developed a survey that was designed considering the Vygotskian concept of scaffolder learning (Vygotsky, 1978). The survey includes 87 items with a 7 steps Likert-type scale. 42 of them were related to “giving feedback”, 42 related to “receiving feedback” and 3 referred to a general vision of the experience. The reliability analysis confirmed that the questionnaire is suitable for evaluating this experience (Cronbach’s Alfa = 0.960 for the first version, 0.982 for the second version). Participants were first and second-year students. In the E1, we collected data from 321 first-year students. In the follow-up stage (E2), the sample consists of 235 students. In E1, 86% of the sample were female of 20 years old (M1 = 20.09; SD1 = 4.59), and they spent 1.80 hours on average (SD1 = 0.76) to give and receive feedback. In E2, gender distribution was similar (89.8% women). Students were around 21 years old (M1 = 20.95; SD1 = 2.633) and they spent less time than in E1 to give and receive feedback, 1.38h on average (SD2 = 0.7). Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were performed using IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS v.20). Descriptive analysis and correlational analysis were applied. Specifically, when examining the experiences, we analysed the variance through applying ANOVA’s test. In the case of the comparison of the perception of learning in giving and receiving feedback, we applied Wilcoxon’s test, which allow us to look for significance in the comparison between their means.

Students find that “Giving and receiving feedback are complementary actions and both are necessary for learning” (M1 = 5.69; SD1 = 1.41 / M2 = 5.43; SD2 = 1.34). However, results show that students perceived that they learn more giving than receiving feedback (M1 = 3.93; SD1 = 1.65 / M2 = 4.46; SD2 = 1.57), mainly in E2, since the difference between experiences is significant [F (1,554) = 14.856, p = 0.000]. Students agree that giving feedback has helped them to evaluate their work (M1 = 5.37; SD1 = 1.19 / M2 = 5.49; SD2 = 1.20) and learning more actively (M1 = 5.10; SD1 = 1.33 / M2 = 4.89; SD2 = 4.83). Receiving feedback is useful to improve the group task (M1 = 5.01; SD1 = 1.55 / M2 = 4.95; SD2 = 1.57) and their work (M1 = 4.94; SD1 = 1.61 / M2 = 4.79; SD2 = 1.64). Statistics show that there are differences between E1 and E2 means, with a slightly higher score in E1 items. However, ANOVA’s test delivers that these differences are not significant (p>0.05), except for the variable “feedback has allowed me to contrast previous knowledge with new knowledge of the subject” in both situations, giving [F (1,522) = 11.694, p = 0.001] and receiving feedback [F (1, 499) = 4.473, p = 0.035]. Concluding, the findings revel the potential of peer-feedback to improve students learning, with higher scores in the case of giving feedback comparing to receiving feedback. In the long-term feedback loop the scores are higher in all the learning dimensions. Being involved in peer-feedback experiences during two consecutive courses do not predict by itself better learning, but, apparently, the elements configuring the learning context as numbers of loops is associated to a higher perception of learning.

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