Exploring and utilising students' perspectives on feedback: a mixed method, longitudinal approach

1. Exploring and utilising students' perspectives on feedback: a mixed method, longitudinal approach Kara Peterson, Simon Croker, Dr. Peter Hills, and Dr. Rachel Manning

2. Welcome

3. Project Background This research aimed to understand students’ perspectives of feedback, as well as develop a feedback system that enhanced student learning and encouraged active engagement with feedback. Who We Are: Dr Peter Hills Dr Rachel Manning Senior Lecturer Principal Lecturer peter.hills@anglia.ac.ukrachel.manning@anglia.ac.uk Kara Peterson Simon Croker Student Research Assistant Student Research Assistant kara.peterson@student.anglia.ac.uksimon.croker@student.anglia.ac.uk

5. Departmental Context • Electronic submission & feedback • Feedback Assistant • Grademark • Coded Annotation • Speed of marking with detailed comments • Standardisation of feedback • Rapid Department Growth

6. Departmental Context

7. Departmental Context

8. Project Timeline

9. Methodology • Peer-led semi-structured focus groups • Anglia Ruskin University psychology undergraduates • 40 phase 1 participants • 19 phase 2 participants • Participants from all three undergraduate years and a range of academic profiles

10. Methodology • Online survey with open and closed response format • Anglia Ruskin University psychology students • 98 phase 1 participants • 78 phase 2 participants • Participants from all three undergraduate years and a range of academic profiles

11. ‘In Our Ideal World…’ Kara Peterson

12. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

13. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

14. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

15. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

16. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

17. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

18. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

19. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

20. Survey Findings Figure 1. Satisfaction levels with different aspects of feedback

21. Key Themes

22. Convenience ‘Yeah, I mean, it’s a bit difficult when you don’t know when to collect your work.’ • ‘I just read the e-mail. I haven’t collected any of my feedback. I just use the emails and go from there. I think it should be easier to actually collect your essay.’ ‘I never bother going to pick up my [feedback].... when you go there you’re waiting in a queue to pick it up in a room’

23. Convenience Figure 2. Percentage of students that collect feedback and how they use feedback.

24. Convenience • ‘It’s really just long going through all the codes just to refer back to what they mean. I just leave it. • ‘You have to keep going back to check the different codes which takes ages.’ ’Yeah it’s like you have to read it and then you have to go back to your other piece of paper that says what the code means, it’s just long and you just feel like you can’t be bothered to do it.

25. Continuing Dialogue ‘Yeah I think [feedback] should be a lot more one on one…’ ‘I think that [feedback] is helpful in a way but at the same time it just tells you what you’ve done wrong not where you can improve and that is a really big aspect that you have to kind of do better in the future rather then making the same mistakes over and over again’

26. Continuing Dialogue ‘If someone’s marked your work that they marked a while back and they’ve noticed that there is an improvement in something or, you know, they’ve seen that your marks are different … it would be nice to know that you have improved it this time rather then just be over looked It’s more of a one way thing at the moment, whereas you just get the feedback and then your expected to do it yourself.’ ‘I don’t know whether it’s my slackness or whatever, but I don’t know who I’m, not allowed to speak to, but I would never realised I could go to my personal tutor because they haven’t marked it.’

27. Consistency ‘[Feedback] is quite mixed, like you either get three pages full of things that you could’ve done better or you get a little blank box and something and sort of a few little hand annotations on the thing..’ ‘[Feedback] should be standardised but obviously because of the topic it might vary what comments we’ll get written but I think if there was like a standard procedure for each topic then it might be a bit clearer…’ ‘I think personally I’d want like bullet points at the start and then I’d want like details throughout’

29. Q & A and Discussion Feel free to ask any questions or share any of your our experiences of students’ perceptions of feedback

30. Differences in perceptions of feedback based on academic achievement and student engagement Kara Peterson and Simon Croker

43. Other Differences • ‘It’s been good to a certain level, however, some of the feedback they give, erm the lecturers, if they sit and criticise we should have donetheydon’t say how we could have improved it. [INT: Yeah] They just mention what we did wrong but they don’t say what they would have preferred for us to do, so.’ • ‘I just think they should provide model answers for like if they do criticise then they should say, or they should write what they think would’ve been a better answer to what, where I went wrong or something.’ • I’m satisfied with any feedback because if you don’t get any feedback you don’t know you’re improving, if you’re not being pointed erm where you’ve gone wrong, how can you correct it? I don’t always know, I mean some of it’s really clear and I know exactly where to go and what to do to improve what they’ve said.’

44. Other Differences • 1/3 of students do not want all their mistakes highlighted. • Students wanted M=5 comments highlighted (range 2-10). • Students with higher grades tended to want all mistakes highlighted, β = .01, p = .004

45. Q & A and Discussion Feel free to ask any questions or share any of your our experiences about student engagement and different practices that encourage student engagement

46. The Next Step…

48. Feedback: What you told us Issues Raised by Students • Worst rated area of feedback was the use of codes • Codes considered generic and a hassle to look up • Second worst rated area of feedback was not providing students with enough positive feedback • Useful to know what areas have been done well along with areas that need improvement

49. Feedback: What you told us Issues Raised by Students • Feedback too generalised • Specific and personalised feedback is more useful • Lack of specificity in how and what to improve • Doesn’t recognise progress or improvements that have been made • Confusion about who to talk to with questions about feedback

50. What’s new Coursework Feedback and Reflection Sheet • New reflection sheet for you to fill out and paste to the end of your coursework (on VLE – ‘Coursework Guidance’) • Gives you a role in deciding what type of feedback you receive • Enables you to highlight how you have used previous feedback on your work, what areas you have found difficult, and grade targets • Allows markers to give personalised feedback based on your coursework goals and how you have used previous feedback.