Identifying Feedback That Has Impact

© Te Editor(s) (if applicable) and Te Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. This chapter offers new insight regarding the theoretical, methodological and practical concerns relating to feedback in higher education. It begins with the construction of a new definition of feedback. We explain how feedback is a learner-centred process in which impact is a core feature. The chapter then explores the reasons why identifying, let alone measuring, impact is problematic. We briefly revisit the contingent nature of educational research into cause and effect and question the implications for feedback processes that are likely to be experienced by individuals in different ways with different effects over different timescales. It is here we then discuss some ways we conceive the various forms of feedback effect including the intentional and unintentional, immediate and delayed, cognitive, affective, motivational, relational and social.