QAA launches Assessment & Feedback Roadshow, what it means for student feedback on assessment

By Student Voice AI

Updated Apr 02, 2026

Assessment and feedback remain some of the most persistent themes in module evaluations, NSS comments, and committee reporting. That is why the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA)'s 5 March 2026 launch of the QAA Assessment & Feedback Roadshow, a free webinar series running from 23 to 26 March, matters: the programme is explicitly focused on how universities improve practice in response to student feedback. [QAA announcement]

What has changed with the QAA Assessment & Feedback Roadshow

The QAA announcement sets out a short, sector-wide enhancement programme rather than a new regulatory requirement. The Roadshow will run over four days, from 23 to 26 March 2026, and will consist of 22 webinars. QAA says speakers will come from member institutions across the UK, and that registration is free and open to all, including non-members. For institutions, that makes it a practical benchmarking window, not another compliance deadline.

The content focus is directly relevant to teams that use student voice evidence to improve teaching and learning. QAA says the Roadshow will open with a session on the impact of generative artificial intelligence on assessment, led by QAA's Data Analyst Rebecca Robinson and Lead Policy Officer for England Helena Vine. The wider programme will cover authentic, inclusive, flexible, and compassionate assessment; collaboration and co-creation; assessment literacy through staff-student partnerships; marking and feedback practices; and institutional responses to GenAI. That mix matters because it connects what students say about assessment to choices universities can actually change.

That breadth matters. Assessment and feedback comments are rarely about one isolated process. Students often connect assessment design, marking confidence, feedback quality, and clarity of expectations in the same response. QAA is effectively framing these issues as a connected enhancement agenda rather than a set of isolated complaints, with contributions from institutions including Aston, Birmingham City, Cardiff Metropolitan, Coventry, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Imperial, King's College London, Leeds, LSE, Manchester, Plymouth, and Southampton.

As Steph Tindall, QAA's Head of UK & International Membership Delivery, puts it:

"share innovative and effective approaches to the opportunities and challenges we face"

What this means for institutions

For student experience, quality, and academic development teams, the immediate implication is practical rather than regulatory. This is a prompt to review how assessment-related feedback is being gathered and acted on before the next survey cycle, not just how it is reported after the fact. If your module evaluations or open-text comments repeatedly surface issues around unclear briefs, inconsistent marking, slow feedback, or concerns about GenAI-related fairness, the Roadshow themes map closely to those pain points and give you a ready-made lens for reviewing where action is most urgent.

The GenAI element is especially relevant. Many universities are redesigning assessments and revising academic integrity guidance at pace. Student feedback will be one of the clearest signals of whether those changes are understandable, trusted, and workable in practice. Teams should be asking whether their current feedback channels are specific enough to distinguish between concerns about assessment authenticity, workload, feedback quality, and confidence in marking. If they are not, institutions risk seeing a general assessment problem without knowing which part of the student experience needs attention first.

There is also a timing advantage. Because the Roadshow is open to non-members and scheduled within March 2026, institutions can use it as a near-term benchmarking opportunity. Programme teams can compare their local issues with the themes being discussed across the sector, then decide what to test, communicate, and monitor. That is especially useful if you want to show a clearer "you said, we did" response before end-of-year reporting, while assessment changes are still fresh enough for students to notice.

How student feedback analysis connects

At Student Voice AI, we see assessment and feedback themes recur across open-text comments from module evaluations, NSS, PTES, and PRES. When institutions pilot changes to assessment design or feedback practice, they need more than anecdote to judge whether those changes helped. Structured analysis of student comments makes it easier to separate issues around assessment literacy, marking consistency, what students think good feedback looks like, and GenAI guidance, then track whether those themes improve after an intervention. That gives teams a clearer read on whether changes improved the student experience, not just the process description.

If you need a common language for that work, our student feedback analysis glossary is a useful starting point. If you are building a more repeatable review process, see our NSS open-text analysis methodology and student comment analysis governance checklist. For adjacent reading, The current understanding of student voice in assessment and feedback and Why is it important to close the loop in student voice initiatives? both help frame how institutions can turn assessment comments into visible action.

FAQ

Q: What should institutions do now?

A: Identify the assessment and feedback issues that appear most often in your current student comments, then decide which Roadshow sessions are most relevant to those themes. After that, set up a simple follow-up plan so any changes to briefs, marking guidance, or feedback practice can be measured and communicated back to students.

Q: When does the Roadshow run, and who can take part?

A: QAA says the Roadshow will run from 23 to 26 March 2026 and will include 22 webinars. Registration is free and open to all, including non-members.

Q: Why does an enhancement event matter for student voice?

A: Sector events like this shape practice before it becomes embedded in guidance, local policy, or annual review processes. Because the programme is centred on assessment, feedback, and GenAI, it gives institutions a useful signal about which student voice issues are likely to remain high priority through 2026.

References

[Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA)]: "QAA launches Assessment & Feedback Roadshow"
Published: 2026-03-05

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