Staff Development for Good Practice in Assessment Feedback

1
Staff Development for Good Practice in Assessment
Feedback

• Dr Pam Parker
• P.M.Parker_at_city.ac.uk
• Patrick Baughan
• P.Baughan_at_city.ac.uk

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Session Outcomes

• Identify the important issues related to
  assessment feedback
• Explore strategies that facilitate lecturer
  development of feedback
• Examine the outcomes of a small scale study of
  staff development with lecturers.

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Reasons for the Study

• 2006 2007 National Student Survey results
• Examination of External Examiner Reports and
  Annual Programme Evaluations
• Issues arising in the literature
• Shared interest in the topic.

4
Students concerns about feedback

• Lacks specific comments, is general and vague
• No guidance for future improvement (Duncan 2007,
  Higgins, Hartley Skelton 2002, Hounsell et al
  2008, Stefani 1998)

• Variability and credibility of feedback (Higgins
  et al 2002 Poulos Mahony 2008)
• Feedback written for a third party and not the
  student (Duncan 2007).

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Staff Development Opportunity

• We wanted to find out when lecturers were given
  staff development in this area, would they apply
  this to practice?
• Group comprised of a cohort of staff students
  who undertook Module 1 of the MA Academic
  Practice programme the Teaching, Learning and
  Assessment module
• One full day of the module is focused on
  assessment and feedback issues.

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Student Information

• Range of backgrounds students based across seven
• Schools of the University
• Range of experience students had between 1 month
• and 2 years of teaching experience
• All students agreed to take part in the study
• 16 students in total for the first phase of the
  project.

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Study Approach

• Evaluation approach used
• Data collected through documentation completed by
  the students
• Qualitative data analysis, linked to themes in
  the literature
• All subjects assured anonymity and
  confidentiality.

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Data Collection

• 3000 word essay focused on pedagogic challenges
  they face and how they have or will manage these
• In addition, all students were asked to self
  assess - provide a mark for each of the
  criteria
• - provide feedback
• - provide an overall mark
• We then marked the essay and provided feedback on
  their self assessment mark and comments.

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Assessment Criteria

• Use of Literature (30)
• Interface between theory and professional
  practice (30)
• Reflection (20)
• Clarity of reasoning and style (10)
• Organisation and presentation (10).

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Results - Grades

• We compared the students marks and comments with
• our own for the 16 students
• Nine (56) were within 5 of our grade
• Two (13) were within 6 10 of ours but had
  given a lower grade
• One was within 6 10 of ours but had given a
  higher grade
• Three (19) were within 11 15 of ours but had
  given a lower grade
• One was 16 20 outside our grade and this was
  higher.

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Results Specific and focused on the five
criteria

• Three (19) students wrote their comments
  unrelated to the criteria
• Five (31) wrote some comments related to
  criteria but not all
• Eight (50) wrote comments related to all
  criteria.

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Results positive comments and areas to develop

• One student made no positive comments
• 15 (94) students noted some positive comments,
  although only four students provided a positive
  comment for all of the criteria
• In terms of areas to develop, none of the
  students provided comments for all the criteria
  despite not one student gaining full marks in a
  section
• The comments that were made in relation to areas
  to develop were noted to be very general without
  specific advice on how to improve.

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Results examples of comments for areas to develop

• Use of Literature 30
• You might have presented more evidence from the
  systematic review of e-learning (Student 3)
• although more reference to peer-reviewed
  educational research journal articles could have
  been made. (Student 11)
• The student is not fully conversant with all the
  literature available. (Student 13).

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Results comments continued

• Interface between theory and professional
  practice 30
• could be strengthened even further with a few
  more links with theory (Student 4)
•  More linking of the theory and practice would
  be helpful, as would further reference to the UK
  higher education climate. (Student 9)
• While I have made connections between practice
  and theory, I think that this area could have
  been drawn out further. (Student 12).

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Results Who was feedback written for

• Two (12) students wrote the feedback directed to
  a student
• Six (38) wrote the feedback as a self assessment
• Eight (50) wrote the feedback to a third person.

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Results Volume of feedback

• One (6) student wrote extensive feedback
• Four (25) further students provided between 3
  6 lines per criteria
• Eleven (69) students provided either limited
  general feedback or less than 3 lines per
  criteria.

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Conclusion

• What are we going to do with the results?
• Sharing results with the students
• Future phases of the project.