without adding too great a burden on lecturers

1
Providing assessment feedback to students
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û Handout

• without adding too great a burden on lecturers

2
The perceived problem (1)
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? Handout

• A quote from a discussion list in SAM
• The other moan that is completely justified
  ltaboutgt some lecturers is the abysmal marking.
  They squiggle a line or two on the front and a
  few ticks...that does not help you improve your
  technique. You ask for help from some and they
  make it clear that you are not important and they
  really wish you'd let them get on with other
  things i.e. outside contract work that gets the
  big bucks.
• Some then moan that there are too many students,
  and that they spend to much time marking. For
  goodness sake, they get paid for this. (sic)

3
The perceived problem (2)
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? Handout

• A quote from the minutes of Degree Scheme Board,
  27 February 2001
• The student representative informed the meeting
  that students were of the opinion they had not
  been given proper feedback in connection with
  their assignments for ltmodule name removedgt. The
  students would like constructive comments and
  quality feedback, and if possible having typed
  comments.

4
Why provide feedback?
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? Handout

• For formative development of students
• learning from their mistakes
• knowing what they did well
• To reduce the number of requests for work to be
  marked again
• To improve student experience (and reduce
  discontent)
• Because the QAA Code of Practice Assessment of
  students section says we should

5
How do you provide feedback?
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û Handout

• How do you provide feedback to students? What is
  good/bad about that approach?

6
How do you provide feedback?
? OHP
û Handout

• How do you provide feedback to students? What is
  good/bad about that approach?

Talk to individuals (No record, inconsistency,
time, quality, builds relationship,
opportunity to agree) Talk to group (Not
specific, easy for students to dismiss, time
saving, flexible) Give model answer (Time
consuming, may be inflexible clear, good
example to learn from) Itemised marking
sheet (Must prepare in advance, possibly.
inflexible, simple, printed, can help with
marking) Spreadsheet of comments (Possibly.
inflexible, create as you mark, printed,
gives statistics) Emails with comments in
coursework (Probably needs automated system,
create as you mark, printed, comments
clear) Automated marking (Time consuming/expensive
to create, integrated system, big benefits
over the years)
7
How?
? OHP
? Handout

• Hand written
• time consuming, poss. inconsistent, difficult to
  read
• Word processed (spreadsheet)
• time consuming to set up, may be laborious to do,
  easy to read
• Face-to-face, viva
• Pro-forma
• time consuming to set up, easy to do, easy to
  calculate marks, easy to read
• Criteria referencing
• students know in advance what is expected,
  specified when setting the assessment, easy to
  do, final mark should reflect criteria (though
  may be subjective), easy to read and understand

8
Pro-forma
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• Each section on the pro-forma probably ought to
  relate to each part of the marking scheme
• You can adapt the pro-forma in the light of the
  work submitted
• e.g. if this year several students make
  such-and-such a mistake, you can add this to the
  pro-forma
• Ticks and comments may indicate the mark you
  should award for each section
• regular patterns often emerge
• danger of blinkered view
• When I tick this box I always award 4/10
• Grade by adding the numbers
• dangers?

9
Criteria referencing
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û Handout

• Students see detailed marking criteria in advance
• The feedback then clearly relates to the
  criteria, because it is the same piece of paper!
• Fail criteria are important F1 / F2 criteria
  increasingly important
• Getting the wording right is difficult
• and important since you cant change the wording
  after youve seen their work
• E.g. consider the criteria for Legislative
  implications. The students who covered this in a
  reasonable and good way did so for reasons
  other than whether it related to lecture material
  or books
• Grade by adding the numbers or by overall feel?

10
Conclusions
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• Providing feedback is important
• for the students
• for the School
• Undoubtedly takes time
• But there are techniques that can reduce that
  burden, and can also help improve consistency in
  marking