Student perspectives on audio feedback

This webinar is one of the Assessment in Higher Education (AHE) Webinars series. The AHE Network, in collaboration with Transforming Assessment Group (Australia) offers online webinars featuring global experts in the field of assessment in higher education. The webinar hyperlink (Blackboard collaborate) will take you to the recording, discussion and comments of the participants.

In the second half of 2020, as a result of COVID 19 and a faculty restructure, a new department of undergraduate programmes offering psychology, social, applied and sports sciences was developed. A new approach to summative audio feedback was trailed across the new department. 163 students and 46 members of staff provided their feedback on the summative audio feedback of the first semester through an online survey, while six members of staff shared their views through a focus group. This research project aims to establish the priories of students for summative feedback and to verify their experience and engagement with formative, summative, written, and audio feedback. The potential of audio feedback to enhance the student assessment experience and the learner–tutor relationship was investigated.

The findings revealed that personalised, detailed, and timely feedback were very important to the students. Most students preferred feedback that focused on detail, rather than general aspects; and areas for improvement, rather than strengths. There was no consensus amongst students about more formative feedback prior to submissions; and less summative feedback (feedback that explains the mark). Psychology students prefer written feedback (X2 (4, N=163 )= 3.8 , p=<.001*), and this was statistically significant; whereas sports and science students were not unanimous in their preference for audio and written feedback. Although students found the audio recordings highly accessible, they are not likely to act on recorded audio feedback than on written feedback; contact their lecturer to discuss their feedback, or review recorded feedback more than written feedback. Audio feedback was generally preferred in the initial years of the undergraduate programmes and by students who had experienced it. Although staff new to using the audio feedback tool in Turnitin originally felt technicality challenged, they discovered that audio feedback is similar to written feedback, but it makes one focus on specific, coherent, and consistent approach to feedback. Some staff feel that audio feedback is not useful for low-achieving students, who might benefit from annotated written comments.

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