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Recent feedback literature emphasises the active role of learners in feedback processes and a programmatic approach to feedback design. This conceptual paper argues for the importance of ipsative processes, i.e. processes focusing on learners' progress as a mechanism in meeting these two requirements. It suggests that the iterative nature of ipsative processes can encourage effective, learner-centred feedback and its implementation across multiple tasks can promote the uptake of feedback in subsequent work. Using self-determination theory, the paper discusses how ipsative feedback processes create conditions which can foster students' perceptions of autonomy, competence and relatedness, thus fostering student motivation to engage with feedback. The implementation of ipsative processes is illustrated with references to two pedagogic practices. The paper identifies the need for further empirical research investigating academic and noncognitive benefits of ipsative processes in feedback for students as well as autoethnographic work examining the implications of implementing ipsative processes for teachers.

Feedback is justified when it has a positive influence on students' subsequent performance. Opportunities for student action need therefore to be consciously designed if feedback is to influence learning. In this paper, we discuss how ipsative design of feedback processes, i.e. involving comparison of a student's current performance with a previous similar task, can promote action from feedback. This design-based research was conducted with English for Academic Purposes students. A formative e-portfolio was implemented to facilitate students' access to their past work and feedback comments. Its aim was to explore how students exploit the ipsative design of feedback to build on both their own and teacher's actions. Analysis of student artefacts and interviews indicated that ipsative design prompts student comparison processes. Students were motivated to revisit their goals, make comparisons with previous work, and review peers' work. The effects of the design included motivation to engage with feedback beyond the immediate task and the revisiting of past work and action to improve it. Implications for teachers and curriculum designers are discussed including the need to create conditions for student action from feedback by including interconnected tasks and explicit comparison activities in the courses.

Recent feedback literature suggests that the development of student feedback literacy has potential to address problems in current feedback practice. Students' feedback literacy involves developing the capacity to make the most of feedback opportunities by active involvement in feedback processes. How the development of student feedback literacy can be embedded within the undergraduate curriculum has not yet been discussed in any depth. This conceptual paper fills that gap by elaborating three key mechanisms for embedding feedback literacy within the curriculum: eliciting, processing and enacting. These are illustrated through enhanced variations of four existing practices: feedback requests, self-assessment, peer review, and curated e-portfolios. The discussion summarizes the key implications for practice and identifies the need for further empirical work investigating how students elicit, process and enact feedback in situ, and longitudinal research exploring the impact of curriculum design on the development of student feedback literacy.

Student feedback practices have been primarily discussed within a context of the particular course or unit of study. Little attention has been paid to how students navigate their feedback practices as they progress through different learning contexts and whether they apply known feedback strategies in new settings. To open exploration of this issue, case studies of five participants were studied over different courses -- undergraduate, direct-entry access program and postgraduate - in order to identify how learners' understandings of past and immediate contexts impacted their approaches to feedback. Data were collected through student artefacts which included e-portfolios completed in the direct-entry program and two interviews, approximately one year apart. Thematic analysis of the data indicated influences of learners' feedback histories on the application of feedback in new contexts. The findings highlight the need to consider students' past feedback experiences, as well as identify connections between courses, in order to assist students in applying feedback practices across contexts. Further research exploring how micro transitions between courses and students' lived experiences of interacting with feedback tools and materials influence their feedback literacy is recommended.