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No Dialogue, No Problem? What high-security prisons can teach us about feedback literacy for all learners
Conference presentation

No Dialogue, No Problem? What high-security prisons can teach us about feedback literacy for all learners

Naomi Winstone, Kieran Balloo and Robert A Nash
Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) Conference (Manchester, UK, 17/06/2026–18/06/2026)
18/06/2026

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Abstract

Higher education Education assessment and evaluation Higher education Assessment, development and evaluation of curriculum
In this session, we introduce FePT as an inclusive approach to feedback literacy, and share key principles behind its approach to scaffolding feedback engagement. Contemporary perspectives on feedback increasingly emphasise learners as active agents in making sense of, evaluating, and using feedback (Boud & Molloy, 2013; Winstone & Carless, 2019). This shift has brought growing attention to the development of students’ feedback literacy (Carless & Boud, 2018) and proactive recipience skills (Winstone et al., 2017). Yet despite this emphasis on learner agency, many feedback practices in higher education remain fundamentally teacher-led. We add more comments, more meetings, and more conversations yet students continue to struggle to use feedback effectively. Many interventions designed to develop feedback literacy rely on dialogue-driven, synchronous activities such as workshops, seminars, and in-class discussions (Little et al., 2024), assuming physical presence, shared time, and ready access to teachers. In contemporary higher education, however, such assumptions are increasingly misaligned with reality. Since the pandemic, physical presence on campuses has decreased. In parallel, higher education institutions have more commuter students, carers, those studying online or in hybrid modes, and students studying around complex life circumstances. In this context, feedback processes require different designs. This project began by confronting one of the most extreme forms of distance in higher education: students studying degree-level programmes in high-security prisons (Nash & Balloo, 2025). These learners may never meet their tutors, cannot email or video-conference, and often receive written feedback with no opportunity for discussion. Through visits to prison education centres and collaboration with prison-based learners and educators, we observed how feedback functions when conversation is removed from the system entirely. We asked a deliberately provocative question: is feedback information still of value under these conditions, and what does this reveal about how we design feedback for other students who may not regularly meet their tutors? Our work exposed a persistent gap in feedback design: learners are frequently expected to know how to use feedback, without being given structured support to do so independently. In response, we developed Feedback emPower Tools (FePT): a freely-available platform designed to support autonomous engagement with feedback in any learning context. FePT comprises interactive ‘PowerPacks’ that address common feedback challenges, including managing emotional responses, planning future actions, and using AI tools to support sense-making. Each PowerPack combines short videos, structured activities, and practical tools that can be used independently by learners, facilitated by educators, and/or embedded within Virtual Learning Environments.

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