EARLY CHILDHOOD STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS OF WRITTEN FEEDBACK ON THEIR UNDERGRADUATE ESSAYS

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EARLY CHILDHOOD STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS OF WRITTEN
FEEDBACK ON THEIR UNDERGRADUATE ESSAYS

• A research project undertaken at the de Lissa
  Institute of Early Childhood and Family Studies
• By
• Victoria Whitington Anne Glover

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Aims of the study

• The aims were
• to investigate whether the early childhood
  students at the University of SA actually read
  lecturer feedback and, if they did, what they
  found helpful and not helpful to their learning,
  and
• to investigate how lecturer time could be most
  effectively used in marking students essays.

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Research questions

• 1. In what ways do Early Childhood students
  perceive lecturer feedback on their essays to be
  effective in enhancing their learning?
• 2. In what ways do students in this study
  perceive lecturer feedback to be ineffective in
  enhancing their learning?

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Participants

• Participants were at the end of their second
  year, and the beginning of their third year of
  study in a four year undergraduate early
  childhood program. Initially, fifty students from
  two second year courses were anonymously surveyed
  by attaching a questionnaire to a returned final
  essay.
• There was a response rate of twenty. In the
  second part of the study, nineteen volunteer
  students (17 females and 2 males) from the same
  cohort, but not necessarily the same students who
  responded to the survey, participated in one of
  four focus groups held early in the following
  academic year.

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Measures

• Qualitative, interpretive research methods were
  used. Two measures were employed.
• The first measure was an anonymous two page
  questionnaire.
• The second measure comprised a series of
  questions for informal, in depth discussion in
  four focus groups.

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Analysis and Results

• Three categories emerged from reading of the
  data
• Reading of the feedback
• Type of feedback found to be most and least
  useful
• The learning environment

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ResultsReading of the feedback

• Contrary to expectations, survey and focus group
  participants unanimously reported that they did
  read lecturer feedback. Moreover, students
  reported that they read feedback thoroughly.
• When reading lecturer feedback, most students
  said that first they turned to the back of the
  assignment to see the final grade and to look for
  summative comments. They read any comments, then
  looked back through their papers for detailed
  comments on each page.

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Results Factors relevant to feedback found to be
most and least useful

• Amount of feedback
• Balancing positive and negative feedback
• Uniformity and consistency in marking
• External markers
• Clarity and legibility
• Applicability of feedback within a course or
  across courses

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Results The learning environment

• Students made comments about the learning
  environment in three general areas
• lecturer approachability,
• the role of the first assignment in a course in
  informing about the second, and,
• the effect of lecturer feedback on their
  motivation in the course and the overall program.

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Discussion

• A major finding of the present study was that
  early childhood students did read the feedback
  that lecturers wrote on their essays, rather than
  simply looking for the grade and discarding the
  rest. This finding is contrary to previous UK
  findings (Eccelstone 1999, and Wojtas, 1998 cited
  in Higgins and Skelton, 2001).
• Early childhood students participating in the
  present study were found to be interested in
  conducting a dialogue with their lecturers,
  collaborating in the learning process rather than
  simply receiving judgements.

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Discussion (continued)

• The second major finding was that early
  childhood students perceived lecturer feedback on
  their essays to be a tool that both enhanced and
  detracted from their learning in a number of
  ways.
• Students said that the feedback they received
  was appropriate in its level of detail and
  specificity. They were generally satisfied with
  the quality and quantity of feedback.

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Discussion (continued)

• Feedback which enhances students learning has
  the following qualities
• It conveys information that is understood by
  students - students reported that they understood
  lecturer feedback, and most were satisfied with
  its level of detail and specificity in the two
  courses surveyed.
• It specifies clearly what needs to be done to
  improve - students were pleased with feedback
  when it made clear how they could have improved
  their paper, and dissatisfied when the feedback
  did not include such information.

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Discussion (continued)

• 3. It should convey specific strategies for
  improvement which can be used beyond the
  boundaries of a specific assignment - students
  indicated that they not only read the feedback
  but also used it in their forthcoming
  assignments, indicating that generally feedback
  was applicable beyond the assignment on which it
  was written.
• 4. It needs to facilitate further learning and
  the motivation to improve Students were
  concerned about an unevenness in marking within
  and across courses which led to an overall
  feeling that some students were advantaged and
  others disadvantaged. In other words, students
  considered that the process of marking was not as
  fair as it could be, thus affecting overall
  motivation in the course.

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Limitations

• Participants in the focus groups were
  self-selected rather than randomly chosen
• The study recognised two approaches to written
  assessment gate-keeping and educative. It
  ignored a third perspective academic literacy

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Conclusion

• The present study found that for this cohort,
  the ideal feedback was written communication from
  the marker that provided not just comments for an
  isolated assignment, identifying errors and
  faults, but was detailed and explanatory and
  which could be used beyond the confines of the
  particular assignment. Students wanted feedback
  which facilitated their learning and which
  contributed positively to their general academic
  progress.