Business School Lessons learned from our FDTL5 project: Engaging Students with Assessment Feedback FDTL Final Conference November 2009 Dr Jill Millar & Dr Karen Handley [email protected] & [email protected]
Dec 10, 2015
Business School
Lessons learned from our FDTL5 project:Engaging Students with Assessment Feedback
FDTL Final ConferenceNovember 2009
Dr Jill Millar & Dr Karen Handley [email protected] & [email protected]
Our research project & aims for this workshop
Research project
• Investigate and encourage the adoption of feedback practices which support student engagement
• Share understandings of the student experience in HE
The 4 stages of our research
• 35 student and staff interviews; 760 questionnaires on student views on different types of feedback (2006-7)
• 7 case studies with 3 partner HE institutions (2006-7)
• 5 cascade partner initiatives in 5 HE institutions (2007-8)
• 12 transferability partner micro case studies in 5 HEIs (2008-9)
Aims for this workshop
• Lessons learned about our 'cascade' partner approach
• Lessons learned - and questions still remaining - about how to research students' experiences of feedback [access & methodology]
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Our cascade approach - structure
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Core project team
Oxford Brookes
Bedfordshire Bradford
Bournemouth Sunderland NorthumbriaUniversity of
West of England
London Met
University of West of England
Sunderland NorthumbriaBrookes London Met
7 case studies in 3 project partners (2006-7)
5 initiatives in 5 cascade partners (2007-8)
12 mini case studies in 5 transferability partners (2008-9)
Our cascade approach – benefits and tensions
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Benefits
Broadening and deepening of ideas
Broadening and deepening of involvement
Testing and re-testing of methods
Tensions
Heterogeneity of results: less robust?
Communication?
Control!
Lessons and questions about our methodology:
(1) talking to students …Ethical considerations:
• Dependency• Power relationships• Our ethics committee regulations
Attracting interest:• Emails?• Talking to large groups• PC 'message of the day'; or links from VLE• Adverts• 'Willing to listen' lists• Recruitment by 'friendly' students?
Retaining interest:• Incentives? (lunch; digital recorders; vouchers?) - what else?• Logistics and timetables
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Lessons and questions about our methodology:
(1) talking to students …Ethical considerations:
• Dependency• Power relationships• Our ethics committee regulations
Attracting interest:• Emails?• Talking to large groups• PC 'message of the day'; or links from VLE• Adverts• 'Willing to listen' lists• Recruitment by 'friendly' students?
Retaining interest:• Incentives? (lunch; digital recorders; vouchers?) - what else?• Logistics and timetables
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Lessons and questions about our methodology:
(2) researching student engagement
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Tutor’s assignment brief
Tutor’s feedback with the assessed assignment
Student’s submitted
assignment
1. Assessor writes the assignment brief
2. Student creates and submits the assignment
3. Tutor assesses the assignment, and gives
formative feedback
4. Student engages with the feedback
Tutor involvement
Student involvement
Lessons and questions about our methodology:
(2) researching student engagement
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Tutor’s assignment
brief
Tutor’s feedback with the assessed assignment
Student’s submitted
assignment
1. Assessor writes the assignment
brief
2. Student creates and submits the
assignment
3. Tutor assesses the assignment, and gives
formative feedback
4. Student engages with the feedback
SO
CIO
CU
LTU
RA
LC
ON
TE
XT
STUDENT OUTCOME
Lessons and questions about our methodology:
(2) researching student engagement
12Business School
Tutor’s assignment
brief
Tutor’s feedback with the assessed assignment
Student’s submitted
assignment
1. Assessor writes the assignment
brief
2. Student creates and submits the
assignment
3. Tutor assesses the assignment, and gives
formative feedback
4. Student engages with the feedback
SO
CIO
CU
LTU
RA
LC
ON
TE
XT
STUDENT OUTCOME
Outcomes influence student’s engagement with
future feedback events
Lessons and questions about our methodology:
(2) researching student engagement
• The need to consider the temporal and relational (sociocultural) dimensions of engagement (Price et al., 2009; Handley et al., 2009)
• The need to (re)consider the appropriate unit-of-analysis and appropriate methods:
Individual properties vs processes of sociocultural activity (Matusov, 2009, p320)
Holism as ‘an impossible methodological task’ (Matusov, 2009, p323)
Impossibility of seeing context; but can we see the ‘seeds of time’ (Mercer, 2009)
‘Planes of analysis’ (Rogoff, 1995) [UoA is never self-contained and is always part of a bigger system which has to be considered]
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Lessons and questions about our methodology:
(2) researching student engagement
• The need to consider the temporal and relational (and sociocultural) dimensions of engagement (Price et al., 2009; Handley et al., 2009)
• The need to (re)consider the appropriate unit-of-analysis and appropriate methods
• Choices we’re still thinking about:
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Snapshots-in-time
(interviews, observations, looking for the 'seeds of time')
Longitudinal research
(diaries, sequences of feedback 'events', observation)
Individual-in-context
(Discursive repertoires ...)
Sociocultural context
(Activity theory; Critical discourse analysis ...)
Lessons and questions about our FDTL project: Engaging students with assessment feedback
Lessons learned:
• Benefits and tensions in using a cascade approach
• The need to reconsider our unit-of-analysis
Questions ...
• How can we attract student involvement in our research?
• What methods give us a window onto the relational and temporal dimensions of student engagement with feedback?
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References
Handley, K., Price, M. & Millar, J. (2009 in submission) ‘Beyond 'doing time': investigating the concept of student engagement with feedback’
Matusov, E. (2009) ‘In search of ‘the appropriate’ unit of analysis for socio-cultural research’, Culture and Psychology, 13, 3, 307-333
Mercer, N. (2008) ‘The seeds of time: Why classroom dialogue needs a temporal analysis’, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17, 33-59
Price, M., Handley, K. & Millar, J. (2009 in submission) ‘Feedback - focussing attention on engagement’
Rogoff, B. (1995) ‘Observing sociocultural activity on three planes’. In J V Wertsch et al., Sociocultural studies of mind. New York: Cambridge University Press
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