A professional body for university assessors has published new guidance recommending that the word “wrong” be removed from student feedback, replacing it with a range of alternatives including “directionally provisional”, “currently sub-optimal”, and “an interesting interpretation of the brief.”
The Feedback Communication Framework, published this month, warns that the word “wrong” creates what the body calls a “negative learning identity anchor” — a persistent and measurable association between a student’s academic self-concept and the experience of incorrectness. The guidance argues that this association is “both avoidable and, on current evidence, largely being avoided inadequately.”
Assessors are offered a tiered vocabulary list covering four scenarios. “Directionally provisional” applies to answers that contain no elements approaching the correct response. “Currently sub-optimal” is recommended for answers that were accurate at an earlier stage of the course and have since been revised by the literature. “An interesting interpretation of the brief” covers responses where the student appears to have addressed a different question. A fourth option — “not yet arrived” — was piloted across four departments before being withdrawn after it was applied almost exclusively to essays submitted after the deadline.
The framework follows a three-year study of feedback language across twenty institutions. The study found that 84% of students who received feedback containing the word “wrong” subsequently reported feeling that they had, in fact, been wrong. An independent review of the study found the methodology sound, noting one minor point: the 84% figure had been rounded up from 83.7%, which the review described as “within acceptable tolerance for a study about the psychological effects of rounding.”
Responses from the academic community have been mixed. A survey conducted by the body alongside the guidance found that 61% of respondents described themselves as “supportive in principle.” The body defines this tier as having no confirmed implementation plan but a positive orientation toward the concept of one.
Some assessors raised concerns about cases where an answer is, in practical terms, wrong in ways that carry professional consequences — for instance, in mathematics, medicine, or law. The guidance addresses this in Section 7, which acknowledges the concern and recommends that assessors in affected disciplines use their judgement, adding that a supplementary framework for factual disciplines is expected to follow the completion of a scoping review currently at the terms-of-reference stage.
An impact review of the new vocabulary will begin once the guidance has been in use for a full academic year. A sub-committee to determine what “a full academic year” means in this context convened in January. It has not yet reported, though the body confirmed it has met twice and that both meetings were described as productive by attendees.
The guidance document runs to forty-one pages. A quick-reference summary is available on request from the body’s communications team, which is currently being restructured.
