| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

TFA! Methods

Page history last edited by Stuart Hepplestone 14 years, 5 months ago

Methods

 

The research project began with a detailed desk-based review of current literature regarding good feedback practice, with specific regard to the application of technology to support both delivery and use of feedback. This literature review has been published and is available for comments and contributions from across the sector.

 

The main study used qualitative methods and worked in partnership with 23 undergraduate students, 14 females and 9 males aged between 18 and 42, to undertake a comparative study of their experiences of receiving different forms of feedback with varying degrees of technical intervention including, but not limited to, electronic feedback with marks withheld, online grade publication, criteria-based feedback and zero-technical intervention.

 

Participants were drawn from each of the four Faculties, and from a particular subject group within each Faculty:

 

  • Arts, Computing, Engineering and Sciences - Computer Networks (n = 6)
  • Development and Society - Psychology (n = 5)
  • Health and Wellbeing - Diagnostic Radiography (n = 8)
  • Organisation and Management - Events Management (n = 4)

 

Through a series of semi-structured interviews student participants were encouraged to articulate their experiences of feedback, taking an inductive approach to evaluation and enabling the research team to work closely with the students to unpack their understanding of their own experiences to analyse the complex and diverse elements of technology-enabled feedback. During interviews students were encouraged to: identify how their feedback was provided; how useful they found the feedback both in terms of content and timeliness; and what they had done or intended to do with their feedback. This approach provided an insight into the effectiveness of feedback and how students engage with it.

 

One section of the interview followed an 'interview plus' approach, a term coined in the JISC LEX project (Creanor et al, 2006), referring to a methodology used extensively at Sheffield Hallam University during the evaluation of the impact of e-learning on the holistic student experience (Aspden & Helm, 2004). Here the interviews were accompanied by examples of feedback grids produced by the Feedback Wizard to encourage students to think about the benefits and drawbacks of this approach to feedback.

 

Sheffield Hallam University has established Research Ethics Policies and Procedures in place to ensure good practice. Consent was obtained from all participants, who were fully informed about the nature of the study and were made aware of their right to withdraw. Participants were also offered information about the Education Guidance Service at Sheffield Hallam University.

 

References

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.