Developmental Feedback as a High-Impact Teaching Practice

High-failure courses may hinder students from pursuing their intended majors and may disproportionately impact minoritized students. High-impact practices (HIPs) are pedagogical practices that encourage student engagement and retention. Developmental feedback is one such HIP that was evaluated in a quasi-experimental study for its potential to support students in General Chemistry at a public university in California ( N  = 58). Results showed that students enrolled in the course implementing developmental feedback had significantly lower failure rates and marginally higher standardized test scores than students enrolled in the course without such implementation. Students also reported that the developmental feedback was valuable for their understanding of the course material. Students’ positive views of the developmental feedback assignments coupled with their better academic performance show that developmental feedback has the potential to support student success in difficult courses.