Engaging students with assessment feedback

1. Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange Engaging students with assessment feedback Prof. Margaret Price, Director ASKe Centre for Excellence FDTL Engaging Students with assessment feedback https://mw.brookes.ac.uk/display/eswaf/Home ASKe Assessment Standards Knowledge exchange Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning http://www.brookes.ac.uk/aske/! aske@brookes.ac.uk

2. Purpose of Workshop • Problems and responses • Engagement with feedback • Where to start • Resources and effectiveness

3. We have a problem! • Surveys and audits • Research literature

4. Feedback problems • Unhelpful feedback (Maclellan, 2001) • Too vague (Higgins, 2002) • Subject to interpretation (Ridsdale, 2003) • Not understood (e.g. Lea and Street, 1998) • Don’t read it (Hounsell, 1987. Gibbs & Simpson 2002) • Damage self-efficacy (Wotjas, 1998) • Has no effect (Fritz et al, 2000) • Seen to be too subjective (Holmes & Smith, 2003)

5. Some responses to the feedback ‘crisis’: • Provide more of the same • Simplistic rules about timing • Standardisation • Label feedback • Setting expectations • Introducing new methods • a complex problem so no simple solution

6. Exploring feedback (activity) • What is its purpose? • What counts as feedback? • What can it achieve? • How do you know it is working?

7. Student engagement with feedback Price et al (submitted)

8. Activity In 3’s, discuss: • How do you currently prepare students to understand and engage with feedback?

9. Where to start • Preparation and setting expectations early in the programme • Identifying ‘feedback moments’ and application opportunities within the programme • Emphasize the relational dimension of feedback • Building in space for dialogue

10. What can we do? (1) • Aligning expectations (of staff & students, & between teams of markers) • Identify what is feasible in a given assessment context - written feedback can often do little more than ‘diagnose’ development issues and then direct students to other resources for help and support • Identifying all feedback available • Ensure it is timely - ‘quick and dirty’ generic feedback, feedback on a draft, MCQs & quizzes, etc. (using technology may help) • Model and encourage the application of feedback

11. What can we do? (2) • Require and provide feedback on self-assessment • Improve the linkage of assessment strategies across programmes and between modules/units • Consider the role of marks - they obscure feedback • Reduce over-emphasis on written feedback - oral can be more effective (McCune, 2004). Face to face feedback with 140 students (FDTL Case study: https://mw.brookes.ac.uk/display/eswaf/Home. • Review resource allocations

12. What can we do (3) • Support the relational dimension of feedback Students say that relationships in which staff are supportive and approachable help them to engage • Avoid anonymous marking • Ensure associate (and permanent) staff have sufficient time and/or space • Provide some continuity of staff contact (personal tutors) • Provide opportunity for dialogue (e.g. discuss feedback in class, peer review, peer assisted learning)

13. Peer marking using model answers (Forbes & Spence, 1991) Scenario: • Engineering students had weekly maths problem sheets marked and problem classes • Increased student numbers meant marking impossible and problem classes big enough to hide in • Students stopped doing problems • Exam marks declined (Average 55%>45%) Solution: • Course requirement to complete 50 problem sheets • Peer assessed at six lecture sessions but marks do not count • Exams and teaching unchanged Outcome: Exam marks increased (Av. 45%>80%)

14. Peer feedback - Geography (Rust, 2001) Scenario • Geography students did two essays but no apparent improvement from one to the other despite lots of tutor time writing feedback • Increased student numbers made tutor workload impossible Solution: • Only one essay but first draft required part way through course • Students read and give each other feedback on their draft essays • Students rewrite the essay in the light of the feedback • In addition to the final draft, students also submit a summary of how the 2nd draft has been altered from the1st in the light of the feedback Outcome: Much better essays

15. Peer feedback - Computing (Zeller, 2000*) The Praktomat system allows students to read, review, and assess each other’s programs in order to improve quality and style. After a successful submission, the student can retrieve and review a program of some fellow student selected by Praktomat. After the review is complete, the student may obtain reviews and re-submit improved versions of his program. The reviewing process is independent of grading; the risk of plagiarism is narrowed by personalized assignments and automatic testing of submitted programs. In a survey, more than two thirds of the students affirmed that reading each other’s programs improved their program quality; this is also confirmed by statistical data. An evaluation shows that program readability improved significantly for students that had written or received reviews. [*Available at: http://www.infosun.fim.unipassau.de/st/papers/iticse2000/iticse2000.pdf]

16. Figure 1: Peer-review as a method of encouraging students to discuss and compare their understanding of assessment criteria

17. Figure 2: the use of 'exemplars' as amechanism for encouraging dialogue about assessment criteria

18. Figure 3: Generic feedback and self critique

19. Activity Individually: Choose one or more specific ideas to improve feedback that you think you could use. In as much detail as possible, identify how you would put the idea/s into practice. In pairs: Take it in turns to explain your plans to your partner. The job for the listener is to be a friendly and constructive critic

20. Feedback moments • Where there is a clear opportunity to apply feedback • Pre assessment • Reflection points Identify them within each programme

21. Figure 4:Taking an overview

22. Refs • Forbes, D., & Spence, J. (1991). An experiment in assessment for a large class. In R.Smith (Ed.), Innovations in engineering education. London: Ellis Horwood. • Fritz, C.O., Morris, P.E., Bjork, R.A., Gelman, R. & Wickens, T.D. (2000) When further learning fails: Stability and change following repeated presentation of text, British Journal of Psychology, 91, pp. 493-511 • Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2002) Does your assessment support your students’ learning available at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/1_ocsld/lunchtime_gibbs.html (accessed November 2002) • Higgins, R., Hartley, P. & Skelton, A. (2002) The conscientious consumer: reconsidering the role of assessment feedback in student learning. Studies in Higher Education, 27 (1) pp. 53-64 • Hounsell, D. 1987. Essay writing and the quality of feedback. In J.T.E. Richardson, M.W. Eysenck & D. Warren-Piper, eds. Student Learning: Research in Education and Cognitive Psychology, 42, no.2: 239-54. • Holmes, L. E., & Smith, L. J. (2003). Student evaluations of faculty grading methods. Journal of Educationfor Business, Vol. 78 No. 6, 318. • Lea, M. & Street, B. (1998) Student Writing in Higher Education: an academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23 (2), pp. 157-172 • McCune, V., (2004) Development of first –year students’ conceptions of essay writing. Higher Education, 47, pp. 257-282. • Maclellan, E. 2001. Assessment for learning, the different perceptions of tutors and students. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education. 26, no.4: 307-318 • Ridsdale, M.L.“I’ve read his comments but I don’t know how to do”:International postgraduate student perceptions of written supervisor feedback. In ‘Sources of confusion: refereed proceedings of the national language and academic skills conference held at La Trobe University, November 27-28,2000’ edited by \k \charnock, pp272-282. • Rust, C. (2001) A briefing on assessment of large groups, LTSN Generic Centre Assessment Series, No. 12, York, LTSN • Wotjas, O. 1998. Feedback? No, just give us the answers. Times Higher Education Supplement. September 25