Assessment of situated orality: the role of reflection and revision in appropriation and transformation of research ethos

In this study, we aim to investigate how students on a cross-disciplinary postgraduate course in research communication describe the formative peer feedback they have received on their oral presentations and what impact they report it has had on their performance. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of 36 transcribed video recordings from the course. Our findings show that the students, through their reflections and revisions, clearly demonstrate to have appropriated and, in some cases, also transformed the course content: they were able to select parts of the feedback relevant to their development and redefine some of the concepts to suit rhetorical situations. Surprisingly, feedback on deficits in student presentations resulted both in reflection and revision, while affirmatory feedback resulted, if at all, in reflection only. These results may help develop effective educational tools for assessment of oral performances in higher education.