Towards signature assessment and feedback practices: a taxonomy of discipline-specific elements of assessment for learning

Through an extended commentary on the empirical articles in this special issue ‘Signature Assessment and Feedback Practices in the Disciplines’ we elaborate the concepts of signature assessment and signature feedback practices by developing a new taxonomy of their elements. We propose that signature assessments focus on conceptual, epistemological, social, material and/or moral dimensions of the discipline. We also propose four discipline-specific sources of feedback information, particularly highlighting what we are calling consequential feedback, which can be generated by users of disciplinary knowledge or objects. Finally, we identify three levels of feedback timings that can support students’ use of feedback information: rhythms, cycles, and spirals. Based on gaps in the literature in relation to this taxonomy, we identify areas for further empirical research that will advance understanding and application of signature assessment and signature feedback practices.