‘Now that’s the feedback I want!’ Students’ reactions to feedback on graded work and what they do with it

Since the introduction of the National Student Survey (NSS) in 2005, like many other institutions, the university where this study took place has expended substantial effort in improving the quality of feedback to students. However, despite much research, changes in pedagogical approaches and shifts in conceptual understanding related to feedback practice, assessment and feedback still receive the lowest satisfaction ratings in the NSS. Lecturers are discouraged when students fail to take note of their feedback, or sometimes do not collect assignments that have been marked. Understanding why feedback is not always acted upon remains an important area for researchers. This paper reports on an in-depth interview study with 14 final year undergraduates, reflecting on their perceptions of feedback written on marked assignments, by selecting examples of what they considered to be ‘good’ and ‘bad’ work. Findings suggested that emotional reactions play a significant part in determining how students will act on the feedback they receive, and the concept of ‘emotional backwash’ is introduced.     

Enabling international student families: new empiricisms and posthumanist entanglements in higher education

ABSTRACT

This paper presents research on movements involved in the lives of international university students and their accompanying family members. Located in the framing of new empiricisms and new materialisms, a posthumanist approach is offered as a way to move beyond the limitations of a focus on the educational mobilities of individualised self-contained student subjects. The research this paper draws on engages a diffractive visual methodology involving interview encounters with women who each moved from Iran to Australia together with their partner and children. A materialist feminist approach enables the consideration of how a variety of entangled movements and animated affects shape the lives of international student families. The utility of this approach becomes the inspiration for thinking through the concept of ‘intra-active becoming in movement’. This brings a refreshed set of practices for designing higher education experiences for international students that resists the divisiveness of binary oppositions in Western thought.     

Preservice teachers’ articulated noticing through pedagogies of practice

Elementary preservice teachers at six universities engaged in a task that provided them opportunities to articulate their professional noticing within video representations, written decompositions, and animated approximations of practice. The preservice teachers’ written accounts indicated that a majority attended to students or student thinking; however, when asked to illustrate their noticing through animation, focus shifted to the classroom teacher. Findings indicate the extent to which preservice teachers articulated specific mathematics concepts within and across pedagogies of practice and highlight the critical importance for selecting and utilizing multiple types of tasks to better understand preservice teacher noticing. Implications for eliciting and supporting preservice teacher noticing are discussed.     

Making sense of double number lines in professional development: exploring teachers’ understandings of proportional relationships

This study presents a qualitative analysis of the knowledge teachers in one professional development course used to reason about proportional relationships with double number lines. We work from the knowledge-in-pieces perspective to consider the existing knowledge the participants did or did not invoke when learning to reason with this new-to-them representation. We analyzed videotaped sessions of a group of urban middle-grade teachers across five class meetings. Our findings include discussion of the two pieces of knowledge that emerged as important for reasoning about proportions with the representation and three knowledge pieces that deterred meaning making. Implications for professional development are discussed as are the implications for conceptualizing teachers’ understanding through a knowledge-in-pieces lens.     

Predictors of teacher intervention in indirect bullying at school and outcome of a professional development presentation for teachers

This study with 326 girls-school teachers developed and tested a model of predictors of the likelihood that teachers will intervene in indirect bullying, and evaluated a professional development presentation. Teachers responded to bullying vignettes before and after a presentation on indirect bullying (Experimentals) or adolescent mental health (Controls). In accord with the model, perceived seriousness of indirect bullying mediated between empathy for victims and likelihood of intervening. Self-efficacy also had a direct effect on likelihood of intervention, though level of knowledge of the impact of indirect bullying made only a small contribution. Compared with Controls, the Experimental Group scored more highly, after the presentation, on perceived seriousness of indirect bullying, empathy for victims, likelihood of intervening and self-efficacy, but not on knowledge of impact. It is concluded that teacher education about indirect bullying may be most effective if it focuses on feelings rather than facts, and provides practical intervention strategies.     

Feeding forward from summative assessment: the Essay Feedback Checklist as a learning tool

Owing to the increasing diversity of assessments in higher education, feedback should be provided to students in a format that can assist future and alternative work. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Essay Feedback Checklist on future alternative assessments. Participants were assigned to one of two groups, one of which completed the checklist prior to assessment 1 (essay) and received feedback using this method. Attainment on assessment 1 and assessment 2 (examination) were taken as pre- and post-test scores. Results revealed increased assessment scores for the checklist group, compared to those who received conventional feedback. Focus group data indicated that students particularly liked elements of the checklist as a feedback method, but potential drawbacks were also highlighted. Implications and future use of the checklist is then discussed.     

Investigating the influence of question type and cognitive process on academic performance in VCE Physical Education: a secondary data analysis

External written examinations are commonly used for determining student academic achievement. The influence of question type and cognitive process on examination performance in senior-secondary physical education is unclear. A secondary data analysis of Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) Physical Education examination data (2011; n?=?9,323, 2012; n?=?8,781) was conducted. Question type (multiple choice and short answer) and overall examination performance were compared and the predictive value of question type, cognitive process (based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy), and overall examination scores determined. In 2011 and 2012, students performed significantly better on multiple-choice questions; however, short-answer performance better predicted overall exam performance. A significant difference between marks achieved by cognitive level and grade (Ungraded [UG] – A+) was found. Low-achieving students (UG – D) were performing well below the examination mean across all questions. Developing higher order thinking skills for all students may lead to improved overall examination performance in VCE Physical Education.     

Sexuality education in Europe: an overview of current policies

Comprehensive sexuality education is one of the most important tools to ensure that young people have the information they need to make healthy and informed choices. The aim of this article is, firstly, to outline general issues about sexuality education pertaining to curriculum content, the didactic methods used, agencies involved, political support, coverage and adequacy of provision and barriers to effective sexuality education in Europe. Secondly, the current state of sexuality education in most European Union member states and Norway is described, enabling a Europe-wide comparison of country experiences in the field. This reveals a wide variety of didactic methods and policies that have shaped the provision of sexuality education and the ease and difficulties with which the subject can be implemented, and at what age and in what form it is available.     

Public Policy

GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY RELATIONS: KEY ISSUES IN THE US TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY by Dr. D.C. Pitt (Economic and Social Research Council, 160 Great Portland St., London WIN 6BA—L3.50, paper)

STATE GOVERNMENT RESEARCH DIRECTORY edited by Kay Gill and Susan E. Tufts (1987—price not given)

GOVERNMENT RESEARCH DIRECTORY edited by Kay Gill and Susan E. Tufts (1987—$350)

RESEARCH SERVICES DIRECTORY edited by Robert J. Huffman, and Mary Michelle Watkins (1987—$290)

PROTECTING THE BEST MEN: AN INTERPRETIVE HISTORY OF THE LAW OF LIBEL by Norman L. Rosenberg (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986—$29.95)

MEDIA LAW by Ralph L. Holsinger (New York: Random House, 1987—price not given)

COMMONSENSE COPYRIGHT: A GUIDE TO THE NEW TECHNOLOGIES by R. S. Talab (McFarland & Co., Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640—$14.95, paper)