A role for technology in enhancing students’ engagement with feedback

This paper explores the potential of technology-enabled feedback to improve student learning. ‘Technology, Feedback, Action!: The impact of learning technology upon students’ engagement with their feedback’ aimed to evaluate how a range of technical interventions might encourage students to engage with feedback and formulate actions to improve future learning. The study used qualitative methods and worked in partnership with 23 undergraduate students to explore their experiences of receiving different forms of feedback with varying degrees of technical intervention including, but not limited to, electronic feedback with grades withheld; online grade publication; criteria-based feedback; and more traditional feedback methods. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, student participants were encouraged to articulate their experiences of feedback. The online publication of grades and feedback and the adaptive release of grades were found to significantly enhance students’ engagement with their feedback. Data were analysed using a thematic approach, and the main themes were used to inform the development of a series of good practice guides. The findings are discussed in the context of current literature.     

Examining increased flexibility in assessment formats

There have been calls in the literature for changes to assessment practices in higher education, to increase flexibility and give learners more control over the assessment process. This article explores the possibilities of allowing student choice in the format used to present their work, as a starting point for changing assessment, based on recent studies and current examples of flexible assessment practice in higher education. The benefits of this flexible assessment format approach are highlighted, along with a discussion of classic assessment considerations such as validity, reliability and marking concerns. The role of technology in facilitating assessment method choice is considered, in terms of new opportunities for providing student choice in the way they evidence their learning and present their work. Considerations for implementing flexible assessment choices into the curriculum are presented, along with a call that further research into such practice is needed to develop a comprehensive set of practical recommendations and best practice for the implementation of flexible assessment choice into the curriculum. The article should be of interest to curriculum developers and academics considering implementing changes to the assessment process to increase student ownership and control.     

Retaining female postgraduates in academia: the role of gender and prospective parenthood

Women remain under-represented in almost all academic levels at universities internationally, and previous evidence has suggested that women move out of the university system in increasing numbers as they progress from postgraduate study to an academic career. The current study aimed to explore the role of gender in the reports of study experiences and future career plans of Australian postgraduate research students (n?=?249). Questionnaire data indicated women were significantly less likely than men to rate an academic career as appealing. In particular, female postgraduate students without dependent children were least likely to want to pursue an academic career. On the basis of qualitative analysis, we attribute this finding, at least in part, to a perceived incompatibility between motherhood and an academic career and discuss the implications for gender equity in higher education.     

Books on Broadcasting

Albert C. Book and Norman D. Cary's The Television Comercial: Creativity and Craftsmanship (Decker, $6.95 paperback)

Stuart N. Hyde's Television and Radio Announcing (Houghton-Hifflin, $9.95)

William O. Johnson Jr.'s Super Spectator and Electronic Lilliputian (Little-Brown, $6.95)     

Canadian Communication

E.B. Ogle, Long Distance Please: The Story of the TransCanada Telephone System (Toronto: Collins, 1979—$14.95)

Stuart McFadyen, et al., Canadian Broadcasting: Market Structure and Economic Performance (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy/available in U.S. from Renouf, Old Post Rd., Brookfield, Vt. 05036—$15.95, paper)

The Information Revolution and its Implications for Canada by Shirley Serafini and Michel Andrieu (November 1980, 113 pp. —$4.95, paper)

Telecommunications and Canada: Consultative Committee on the Implications of Telecommunications for Canadian Sovereignty (March 1979, 98 pp.—$6.00, paper)

The 1980s: A Decade of Diversity–Broadcasting, Satellites, and Pay-TV (.July 1980, 94 pp.—$3.95, paper)

Attitudes of Canadians Toward Advertising on Television (1978, 55 pp.—$2.00, paper)     

General Motion Pictures

Dana H. Hodgdon and Stuart M. Kaminsky BASIC FILMMAKING (New York: Arco Publishing, 1982—$12.95/$7.95)

Stewart Bronfeld WRITING FOR FILM AND TELEVISION (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981—$11.95)

Leonard Maltin TV MOVIES (New York: New American Library, 1982— $4.95)

Alan Frank THE HORROR FILM HANDBOOK (Totowa, NJ: Barnes E. Noble Books, 1982—$24.95)

Richard Dyer MacCann and Jack C. Ellis CINEMA EXAMINED: SELECTIONS FROM CINEMA JOURNAL (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982—$9.95 paper)     

Control as a concept in broadcast production

What people say they do and what they actually do may be two different things. Peter E. Mayeux explores the functions of three television critics, both as stated by them and as manifest in their writings over a period of time. This article, a companion to the author's “Stated Functions of Television Critics” (Journal of Broadcasting, Vol. 13, No. 1), originally was prepared as a portion of an M.A. thesis completed under the direction of Dr. Sam Becker at the University of Iowa. Mr. Mayeux has taught recently at the University of Southwestern Louisiana.     

An annotated bibliography of articles on broadcasting law and regulation in law periodicals, 1920–1955

USING THE MASS MEDIA: COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY. By Steven H. Chaffee and Michael J. Petrick. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1975. 264 pp. $6.95 (paper).

THE GREAT AMERICAN BLOW‐UP: PUFFERY IN ADVERTISING AND SELLING. By Ivan L. Preston. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975. 368 pp. $11.95.

TELEVISION AS A SOCIAL FORCE: NEW APPROACHES TO TV CRITICISM. Edited by Richard Adler. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1975. 171 pages. $15.00/$3.95.

RADIO BROADCASTING: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SOUND MEDIUM. Edited by Robert L. Hilliard. New York: Hastings House 1974 (2nd ed.). 312 pp. $10.95/$6.95.

COURSE HANDBOOKS of the Practicing Law Institute. Titles as follows. New York: PLI, 1973–75. $20.00 each, with student price available (paper).

COMMUNICATIONS LAW: 1975. (Handbook 67) 835 pp.

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN CATV: 1974. (Handbook 56) 551 PP.

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS IN COPYRIGHT LAW: 1975. (Handbook 64–65, two volumes) 476 and 356 pp.

LEGAL AND BUSINESS PROBLEMS OF THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY: 1975. (Handbook 63) 345 pp.

LEGAL AND BUSINESS PROBLEMS OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY. (Handbook 37) 606 pp.

LEGAL AND BUSINESS PROBLEMS OF THE RECORD INDUSTRY: 1975. (Handbook 61) 603 pp.

PACKAGING FOR TELEVISION AND MOTION PICTURES. (Handbook 43) 312 pp.     

Analysis of broadcasting literature: Periodical publications of economics

The “real” differences between television and newspaper coverage of a given event may involve much more than considerations of timeliness and length. This report is based on Russell Harney's 1968 master's thesis in journalism at the University of Wisconsin, for which Dr. Stone (assistant professor of journalism at Wisconsin) was advisor. An earlier version was presented to the Radio‐Television Division of the Association for Education in Journalism during its convention at the University of Kansas in 1968. Commander Harney is a U.S. Navy public affairs specialist. The authors wish to thank the many news executives and other personnel of the ABC, CBS and NBC television networks who cooperated in this study.