Mutual feedback in e-portfolio assessment: an approach to the netfolio system

This paper presents an alternative application of e-portfolio in a university student assessment context. A concept based on student collaboration (called netfolio) is developed, that differs from the classical e-portfolio concept. The use of a netfolio, a network of student e-portfolios, in a virtual classroom is explained through an exploratory study. A netfolio is more than a group of e-portfolios because it offers students a better understanding of learning objectives and promotes self-revision through participation in assessment of other students' learning, as indicated through their portfolios. Class student e-portfolios are interconnected in a unique netfolio such that each student assesses their peers' work and at the same time is being assessed. This process creates a chain of co-evaluators, facilitating a mutual and progressive improvement process. Results about teachers' and students' mutual feedback are presented and the benefits of the process in terms of academic achievements are analysed.     

‘… do that and I'll raise your grade’. Innovative module design and recursive feedback

In an attempt to ensure students had a positive experience in their first semester, and to encourage future effective use of tutors’ feedback comments, a post-1992 university used a module in the school of education to develop an innovative feedback process. The process involved four stages: a first submission of written work, written feedback on that work, viva on student understanding of feedback, and final submission of written work. Between the viva and final submission, students could choose to improve their work for a specified number of grade points. The innovation was met favourably by students, and overall grades were improved against the previous iteration of the module. The project showed promise for adaptation in other forms for use across the University, though some ideological issues around assessment remain unresolved. The matter of the innovation and institutional quality standards is discussed in detail.     

Teachers’ Classroom Teaching Practices in Amhara Region and Addis Ababa City,Ethiopia

The purpose of the study reported on was to investigate the current classroom practices of teachers. Using multistage sampling, 245 teachers were selected from primary and secondary schools in the Amhara Region and Addis Ababa City, Ethiopia. A survey design was used for the study. The major results obtained showed that problems were observed in implementing active teaching methods; applying a variety of assessment techniques; questioning skills; providing feedback; managing classroom behaviour; and establishing a positive classroom climate. The study results revealed that primary school teachers performed better than secondary school teachers and also female teachers performed better than male teachers in most teaching-learning activities; but there was no difference in terms of regions for most teaching-learning activities. Some of the recommendations are: training on active learning methods and assessment; providing feedback; student management; action research; and so on.     

Intelligent analysis of the quality of education through teaching practices on virtual campuses

ICTs have been increasingly involved in teaching–learning processes due to the potential offered by the tools as well as to the set of demands derived from the political and health situations of the social environment. In this sense, the introduction of virtual campuses as complex systems that centralize the entire technological component that complements traditional teaching processes has meant a change of paradigm with repercussions at the teaching and pedagogical level. In this context, the purpose of this study aims to analyze students’ perception of the use of virtual campus and how to enhance the quality of the educational process using intelligent systems. For this purpose, 318 students that use virtual campus have been surveyed. The results show that there are three variables that predominantly influence the quality of teaching–learning processes using virtual campuses: frequent contact with teachers through the platform, the digital competence of the student, and the adaptation of training content to the students’ prior knowledge. This information can be useful, as it allows them to establish guidelines to guide the practices of their teaching teams in technological environments, guaranteeing the suitability of the teaching–learning process and improving the evaluation processes and the assessment of their own educational work.

     

Closing the loop on student feedback: the case of Australian and Scottish universities

Universities have a long history of collecting student feedback using surveys and other mechanisms. The last decade has witnessed a significant shift in how student feedback is systematically collected, analysed, reported, and used by governments and institutions. This shift is due to a number of factors, including changes in government policy related to quality assurance, and the increased use of the results by various stakeholders such as governments, institutions, and potential students and employers. The collection, analysis, and reporting of results are systematically carried out in many institutions worldwide. However, how to use student feedback to effectively improve student learning experience remains an issue to be addressed. This paper will contribute to this debate by comparing how Australian and Scottish universities use student feedback results to inform improvements. Based on thematic analysis of external quality audit reports of all Australian and Scottish universities, this paper suggests that universities have systematic processes to collect student feedback using a range of mechanisms, but limited work is done to use the data to inform improvements. This paper argues the need for universities to genuinely listen to student voice by facilitating partnership between students and institutions to act on their feedback as part of quality assurance.     

Students’ Interpretation of Formative Assessment Feedback: Three Claims for Why We Know So Little About Something So Important

If K‐12 students are to be fully integrated as active participants in their own learning, understanding how they interpret formative assessment feedback is needed. The objective of this article is to advance three claims about why teachers and assessment scholars/specialists may have little understanding of students’ interpretation of formative assessment feedback. The three claims are as follows. First, there is little systematic research of K‐12 students’ interpretations of feedback. Systematic research requires gathering substantive evidence of students’ cognitive and emotional processes using psychological methods and tools. Second, there is an overemphasis on the external assessment process at the expense of uncovering learners’ internal reasoning and emotional processes. This overemphasis may be due to vestiges of behavioral approaches and lack of training in social cognitive methods. Third, there are psychological tools such as the clinical interview, pioneered by Piaget and used by psychologists to “enter the child's mind,” which may be helpful in uncovering students’ interpretation of feedback and associated behavioral responses. If the purpose of formative assessment is to change student learning, and feedback is delivered as a conduit to help with this long‐term change, understanding students’ interpretation of feedback plays a central role in the validity of the process.     

Peer assessment in a test-dominated setting: empowering, boring or facilitating examination preparation?

The literature suggests that peer assessment contributes to the development of student learning and promotes ownership of assessment processes. These claims emerge from research conducted primarily in Western contexts. This exploratory paper reports on the perspectives that a class of Hong Kong primary school students and their teachers have on their engagement with peer assessment. It draws on data collected through extensive interviews and classroom observations from a 2-year case study. The findings indicate that student perceptions about the usefulness of peer assessment follow from their perspectives on quality of peer feedback, peer language proficiency, and the novelty or repetitiveness of its processes. Teachers and students also viewed peer assessment as assuming a wider role in preparing for examinations and future secondary schooling. A key implication is that assessment practices are deeply cultural and, in test-dominated settings, peer assessment may have most potential when explicit links are drawn with preparation for summative assessment.     

The conundrum of low achievement and feedback for learning

Abstract

The literature on improving student engagement with assessment and feedback has a tendency to treat all students as if they are the same. Students with lower levels of attainment are generally under-represented within empirical studies and their feedback behaviours are less well understood. The recent drive to improve student assessment and feedback literacy and the move from ‘feedback’ being information about a task to being a process of understanding and using performance information is a larger conceptual leap for some students than others. In this paper, we consider issues surrounding the transition to new modes of feedback, focussing on what is needed for those who find study difficult and persistently are disappointed by their levels of attainment, to benefit from and take advantage of our feedback pedagogies. We examine literature advocating strategies such as increasing agency, using praise, developing feedback literacy and cultivating a growth mind-set. We argue that students who underachieve may benefit from strong relationships with educators and peers, exposure to feedback rich, low stakes environments, which permit repeated integrations of practice and feedback, and building feedback literacy through peer assessment activities.     

Assessment and Feedback: Institutional Experiences of Student Feedback, 1996 to 2007

Attention has recently focused on sectoral concern with assessment and feedback as a result of the National Student Survey. Government, the higher education agencies and the NUS have called for urgent action to address this concern. Existing data from institutional student feedback surveys, using the Student Satisfaction Approach, some dating back well over a decade, shows that the issue is not a new one. Indeed, several institutions have been addressing student concerns and as a result, have seen student satisfaction increase.
This paper explores the existing student feedback data in order to identify not only how students' perceptions of assessment and feedback have changed over time but also the main concerns of students and institutions and what action has been taken by institutions to increase satisfaction.
Several main concerns emerge from the data. Students value feedback as it is re-assuring as an indication of their progress and that it should be timely. Institutions that have used the Student Satisfaction Approach are concerned to clarify their processes to students, to increase their own efficiency in returning work, to monitor and review their assessment and feedback régimes and to share good practice, both internally and externally. Action taken as a result of listening to the student voice results in increased satisfaction but this can take several years.     

Formative and shared assessment in higher education. Lessons learned and challenges for the future

Formative assessment is the process by which teachers provide information to students during the learning process to modify their understanding and self-regulation. An important process within this is shared assessment, which refers to student involvement in the assessment and learning practice, a process of dialogue and collaboration between teacher and students aimed at improving the learning process, both individually and collectively. The purpose of this paper is to review the current state of affairs in depth. This paper therefore highlights, on the one hand, the lessons learned through research and development in higher education (i.e. providing clear learning goals and feedback, guiding learning, involving students in learning and assessment, promoting feedback as a process of dialogue, and making processes viable). On the other hand, these lessons also suggest some challenges and difficulties that must be addressed in the future in order to further improve formative and shared assessment in higher education. These include the need for more research on its effects, further conceptual clarification, the intersubjectivity of the process, recognition of the divergent processes and ethical principles, students’ involvement not only in assessment but also in determining academic grades, and broading learning goals and objetives in FA & SA.     

Teachers’ beliefs about feedback practice as related to student self-regulation,self-efficacy,and language skills in teaching English as a foreign language

This study examines lower-secondary teachers’ beliefs about feedback practice as related to beliefs about student self-regulation, self-efficacy, and language skills while teaching English as a foreign language. Data analysis of ten individual interviews was carried out using the constant comparative method. Most of the teachers connected own feedback practice to an awareness of assessment for learning through the teaching of language skills. However, a hidden accountability system seemed to overshadow the full potential of assessment for learning for the teachers with its emphasis on testing. Aspects of marking, student involvement, and dialogic feedback were considered challenging to the feedback practice of half of the teachers. The teachers were further divided as to the relevance of feedback for self-regulation and strategy training. Although most teachers discussed feedback as important for students’ self-efficacy, unrealistic expectations and marks were considered impediments to student learning. Implications for teaching and professional learning are discussed.     

Linking rights,needs, and fairness in high-stakes assessments and examinations

This paper presents a novel explanation for the continued absence of a children’s rights strategy within high-stakes educational assessment with reference to the competing purposes of high-stakes assessments and group-based constructions of fairness in assessment. We provide an original critique of group-based perspectives on the validity of assessment accommodations which supports an individual perspective on fair educational assessment. From this, the (almost forgotten) concept of ‘student assessment needs’ is (re-)introduced as a central axiom, to be constructed through feedback from, and dialogue with, students about their experience of high-stakes assessments, giving primacy to their purpose as an attainment demonstration opportunity for the student. To promote a new movement towards student participation in educational assessment processes and reforms, we propose ‘rights respecting assessment’, complementary to UNICEF’s ‘Rights Respecting Schools’ initiative, in which regular system-wide student representation would contribute to the development of high-stakes examination systems. In recognition of this aspiration, this paper is co-authored with a recent school-leaving age examination candidate.     

Analyzing on-line video club discussions focused on formative assessment

The goal of this qualitative study was to examine teacher noticing of specific interactions related to the formative assessment process during teachers' participation in an on-line video club. Nineteen teachers used an electronic video coaching platform, Edthena to view peers' videos and provide electronic feedback specific to the formative assessment process. Seven hundred and twenty-seven comments by participants were analyzed for both topics of comments related to interactive formative assessment and the type of response. The findings revealed that comments within the on-line video club focused predominantly on one aspect of formative assessment, questioning. Additionally, teachers were most comfortable validating fellow teachers' practices as opposed to providing recommendations for future practice. Implications for future use of on-line video clubs are included.     

Rhetoric and the writer's profile: Problematizing directed self-placement

Open enrollment and walk-in advising at two-year colleges make placement assessment a continual, year-round process, effectively prohibiting the use of placement processes like entrance portfolios. On the grounds of expediency, many two-year institutions have turned to computerized editing tests such as COMPASS for placing entering students into writing courses, even though such tests do not directly measure writing. Forgoing placement assessment entirely through directed student self-placement, such as that described by Royer and Gilles, has also become an attractive alternative for some institutions. Beginning with the premise that assessment is a rhetorical act, the authors describe their reasons for resisting computer editing tests and suggest possible problems with using only directed student self-placement in open access institutions. They then describe a placement process, the Writer's Profile, which they developed. A sample student profile is presented to illustrate the interaction and negotiation among writing teachers as they read profiles and reach an agreement about their placement recommendation. The authors argue that the form of assessment chosen is important because as a rhetorical act assessment affects curriculum, pedagogy, faculty development, and even the surrounding community's expectations and perceptions of college writing.     

Wiki Laboratory Notebooks: Supporting Student Learning in Collaborative Inquiry-Based Laboratory Experiments

Recent examples of high-impact teaching practices in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory that include course-based undergraduate research experiences and inquiry-based experiments require new approaches to assessing individual student learning outcomes. Instructors require tools and strategies that can provide them with insight into individual student contributions to collaborative group/teamwork throughout the processes of experimental design, data analysis, display and communication of their outcomes in relation to their research question(s). Traditional assessments in the form of laboratory notebooks or experimental reports provide limited insight into the processes of collaborative inquiry-based activities. A wiki environment offers a collaborative domain that can potentially support collaborative laboratory processes and scientific record keeping. In this study, the effectiveness of the wiki in supporting laboratory learning and assessment has been evaluated through analysis of the content and histories for three consenting, participating groups of students. The conversational framework has been applied to map the relationships between the instructor, tutor, students and laboratory activities. Analytics that have been applied to the wiki platform include: character counts, page views, edits, timelines and the extent and nature of the contribution by each student to the wiki. Student perceptions of both the role and the impact of the wiki on their experiences and processes have also been collected. Evidence has emerged from this study that the wiki environment has enhanced co-construction of understanding of both the experimental process and subsequent communication of outcomes and data. A number of features are identified to support success in the use of the wiki platform for laboratory notebooks.     

Feedback loops and the longer-term: towards feedback spirals

A key challenge for feedback practice involves promoting student uptake through the closing of feedback loops. This paper investigates feedback loops by using the concepts of single and double-loop learning to interrogate student responses to feedback. Single-loop learning tackles an identified problem or task, whereas double-loop learning additionally re-evaluates how the problem or task is approached. Evidence from a five-year longitudinal enquiry into four undergraduate students’ experiences of feedback is used to analyse feedback loops. Students reported a variety of experiences: failing to engage significantly with end-of-semester comments; short-term uptake within modules which had two assignments; and longer-term efforts at improving their learning strategies. A model of long-term student engagement with feedback is proposed, including single-loop feedback processes, double-loop feedback processes and unresolved learning puzzles. Whereas feedback loops are mainly focused on the shorter-term, it is suggested that feedback spirals represent an alternative way of analysing complex, iterative longer-term learning processes. Implications for practice focus on student self-regulation and the development of student feedback literacy.     

Using Assessment to Induct Students and Staff into the PBL Tutorial Process

The introduction of a new problem-based Graduate Medical Course with over 230 students and more than 200 staff required a systematic process for induction into the PBL philosophy and tutorial process. The 4SAT (4 Step Assessment Task) was designed for use as an instrument for formative and summative assessment of reasoning ability, elements of the PBL tutorial (group) process and individual learning outcomes. The instrument was developed through evaluative cycles based upon staff and student feedback, reflection and peer review. The 4SAT has face validity with the learning process and emphasises reasoning and integration of knowledge. An unexpected out come of its development was its use as a powerful tool to induct staff and students into the PBL group processes, scaffold development of hypothetico-deductive reasoning and provide guidance on the depth and breadth of learning expected in the course.