The Psychology of Feedback and Learning Transfer

Description

This module examines how feedback supports durable learning and facilitates the transfer of knowledge and skills across tasks, contexts, and time. Integrating research from cognitive and educational psychology, students will investigate how feedback can be designed and delivered to enhance not only immediate performance but long-term retention and flexible application. Students will explore the types and functions of feedback-including task-level, process-level, and self-regulatory feedback-and analyse the cognitive mechanisms that make feedback effective or ineffective. uptake and impact. The module also delves into the science of learning transfer, where students will engage with concepts such as near and far transfer, transfer-appropriate processing, and the design strategies of hugging (practice embedded in transfer-like tasks) and bridging (explicit abstraction and connection-making). Research on retrieval-based learning, including the testing effect and desirable difficulties, will be used to show how feedback and assessment can be co-designed to optimise long-term learning. Barriers to effective feedback and transfer will also be addressed, including student misinterpretation, over-reliance on evaluative feedback, and systemic challenges in applying learning across settings. By the end of the module, students will be able to design feedback systems and instructional environments that promote adaptive expertise, transferable knowledge, and lifelong learning skills.