Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective

Peer review is a reciprocal process whereby students produce feedback reviews on the work of peers and receive feedback reviews from peers on their own work. Prior research has primarily examined the learning benefits that result from the receipt of feedback reviews, with few studies specifically exploring the merits of producing feedback reviews or the learning mechanisms that this activates. Using accounts of their experiences of peer review, this study illuminates students’ perceptions of the different learning benefits resulting from feedback receipt and feedback production, and, importantly, it provides insight into the cognitive processes that are activated when students construct feedback reviews. The findings show that producing feedback reviews engages students in multiple acts of evaluative judgement, both about the work of peers, and, through a reflective process, about their own work; that it involves them in both invoking and applying criteria to explain those judgements; and that it shifts control of feedback processes into students’ hands, a shift that can reduce their need for external feedback. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. It is argued that the capacity to produce quality feedback is a fundamental graduate skill, and, as such, it should receive much greater attention in higher education curricula.     

Living action research: authoring identities through yaya projects

This article examines the authors’ experiences living action research through an art therapy activity known as YaYa that involved creating and sharing visual representations of themselves as beginning researchers. This activity was part of a graduate course on education action research and students in the course found the activity transformative. The article first explores how four students in the course created and presented their YaYas. It goes on to discuss how the activity provided opportunities for students to imagine and re-imagine authored identities in the figured worlds of teaching and research. The role that visual arts play in transforming consciousness is also used to help understand the powerful impact of the YaYa activity. The YaYa as a visual artistic process opened students up to meaning-making and reconstructing identities that involved not only the mind, but also the emotions, body and spirit. The authors claim that learning action research can itself be a process of action research, and that living such practice is about involving and imagining the whole self in multiple figured worlds.     

Understanding the impact of commercialization on public support for scientific research: is it about the funding source or the organization conducting the research

This research examines the influence of commercialization on support for scientific research. It compares the effects of the funding source with the type of organization on public support for stem cell research. Using a national Australian telephone survey (n = 1000), the results reveal that support drops significantly when scientific research is funded by private rather than public interests, and even more so when it is conducted in a private company rather than a public university. Respondents' preference for university research was enhanced if they trusted universities, distrusted major companies and believed that the research would be beneficial. A preference for public funding was also associated with lower trust in companies and a belief that the research would benefit people. Implications of these results are discussed in relation to the challenge of maintaining public support in an increasingly commercialized research environment.     

“How Did I Do?”: Giving learners effective and affective feedback

Educational technology research and development - Borup et al. (Educ Technol Res Dev 63: 161–184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-015-9367-8 , 2015) examined teacher candidate and instructor...     

The role of nonspeech rhythm in Spanish word reading

Recent literacy research shows an increasing interest in the influence of prosody on literacy acquisition. The current study examines the relationship of nonspeech rhythmic skills to children's reading acquisition, and their possible relation to stress assignment in Spanish, a syllable‐timed language. Sixty‐six third graders with no reading difficulties were scored on measures of nonspeech rhythm, word‐level decoding skill, reading fluency and reading with correct assignment of lexical stress. After controlling for verbal intelligence and working memory, hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that nonspeech rhythm predicted unique variance in reading fluency and correct stress assignment; it did not predict decoding skills. Given that Spanish is a syllable‐timed as opposed to stress‐timed language like English, the association between nonspeech rhythm, reading fluency and stress assignment found in our study suggests that nonspeech rhythm may be a universal factor in reading acquisition, independent of the type of linguistic rhythm.     

You are never alone: understanding the educational potential of an ‘urban solo’ in promoting place-responsiveness

Abstract

Solos have a long history in outdoor learning (education) for their use in ‘wilderness’ settings. They have been theorised in experiential education literature and through phenomenological concepts where dwelling and solitude provide unstructured time for individual reflection. Place-Based Education provides opportunities for educators to develop place-responsive practices in areas local to where people live, work and study. This paper reports on an exploratory investigation into a Masters-level course. Students were required to undertake an ‘urban solo’ in a familiar place and consider how ontological disruption might be nurtured in city-based locations. Six students participated in semi-structured interviews which were then analysed thematically using a constructivist grounded theory approach. Findings revealed that their solo experiences had had a profound and unexpected effect on all students. These changes seemed to occur as the result of an ontological shift in the students from being passive receptors of stimuli to engaging more actively with their surroundings. We concluded that, because of its simplicity and close proximity to school grounds, the urban solo is one way for teachers to overcome the barriers they consistently report to outdoor learning. We recommend that future studies draw further on urban theorists to develop more city-based, place-responsive practices.     

Terry Storry (1950–2004) An obituary

Abstract

From the discussion in parts one and two there are two main points that emerge. The first is that it is difficult to identify from outdoor education literature a philosophical framework on which practice is based. Secondly, the body of outdoor education literature attaches more importance to learning outcomes relating to personal and social education than environmental education. The purpose of part three is to offer a philosophical framework and use it to consider the relationship between outdoor education, environmental education and the related concept of sustainability education. The paper starts out by looking at the development of western thought and how it has promoted the concept of epistemological dualism's. The paper then presents an alternative framework of epistemological diversity including experiential, presentational, propositional and practical ways of knowing that has particular relevance for environmental education and sustainability education. Although the prime focus of this paper is environmental education it also deals explicitly with a philosophical framework which includes experiential learning. Consequently, it has relevance to other claims made of outdoor education in particular personal and social education.     

Regional diversification and green employment in US metropolitan areas

Adapting or supplanting production and distribution systems to accommodate new criteria of environmental sustainability entails the search for and the recombination of know-how from a variety of domains. How this process plays out in different areas depends crucially on the specific composition of local economic activities. This paper contributes this debate by analysing whether and to what extent regional industrial and occupational diversification affects the change in green employment across 363 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) in the United States between 2006 and 2014. Our findings suggest that industrial unrelated variety within MSAs is a positive and significant predictor of green employment growth whereas related variety has very little impact. Conversely, both related and unrelated diversification across occupations are positively associated with green employment growth. The analysis also uncovers heterogeneity across existing, new and evolving green jobs.     

On the use of lexical stress in reading Spanish

This paper investigates whether or not lexical stress is used for lexical access in Spanish. A lexical decision task and a masking priming procedure were used to compare correctly-versus-incorrectly stressed words (e.g., técla-TECLA vs. teclá-TECLA). SOA (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony) was manipulated at 33, 66, 100, and 143 ms. The results showed that congruent condition was easier, but in 143 ms SOA only. Furthermore, while congruent condition did not differ from a control identity condition (e.g., tecla-TECLA) incongruent condition was slower, but in 100 and 143 ms SOA only. All these results suggest that stress affects lexical access at a late stage of lexical access processing. Reading models should be re-designed in order to include lexical stress as another phonological code which is used for reading.