Feedback, efficiency and learning payoff: new designs for formative assessment

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• Feedback, efficiency and learning pay-off new
  designs for formative assessment
• Professor David Nicol,
• Deputy-Director,
• Centre for Academic Practice and Learning
  Enhancement (CAPLE)
• Director, REAP project (www.reap.ac.uk)
• University of Strathclyde
• Queens University Belfast, 15th February 2008

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Plan

• Describe background
• Introduce research
• Case studies of practice from REAP
• Discussion
• Thinking about your practice
• Developments and Guidelines
• Sources of information and advice

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Background

• Projects
• Student Enhanced Learning through Effective
  Feedback (SENLEF) project funded by HE Academy
• Literature review model of formative assessment
  and feedback 7 principles in relation to
  development of learner self-regulation
• The Reengineering Assessment Practices (REAP)
  project funded by SFC 1m) www.reap.ac.uk
• QAA Scotland first year experience and
  formative assessment

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Re-engineering Assessment Practices project

• 3 HEIs (Strathclyde, Glasgow Caledonian Business
  School, Glasgow University)
• Large 1st year classes (160-900 students)
• A range of disciplines (19 modules 6000
  students)
• Many technologies online tests, simulations,
  discussion boards, e-portfolios, e-voting,
  peer/feedback software, VLE, online-offline
• Goals learning quality and teaching efficiencies
• Outputs case studies, advice for strategic
  change
• Assessment for learner self-regulation

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Why take assessment and feedback seriously?

• A key driver of student learning
• Major cost in higher education
• Widely reported that students dont read feedback
  provided
• Drop-out and retention linked to academic
  experience
• QAA reports main area of criticism in England

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• Nationally only 55 of students think feedback is
  prompt and had helped to clarify things they did
  not understand Scotland 48
• Nationally only 63 of students agree that have
  received detailed comments on their work
  Scotland 49

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A key research paper

• Black and Wiliam (1998) 250 studies
• Real classroom situations tutor, peer and
  self-assessment and feedback
• Positive benefits for learning and achievement
  across all content areas/skills and sectors
• . the lowest effect size would move a student
  from the average into the top third in a class
  test
• Big impact in schools but what about HE?

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First Year The academic experience

• What is important?
• Coping with transition
• Understanding what is required
• Engagement with academic programmes
• Support and feedback
• Experiences of success
• Agents in own learning
• Belief in self (ability) and motivation
• Social dynamics of learning (belonging)
• Based on research by Yorke (UK) and Tinto (US)

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Background (1)

• Gibbs, G. Simpson, C (2004) Conditions under
  which assessment supports students learning,
  Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1,
  3-31.
• See
• Formative Assessment in Science Teaching (FAST)
  project at http//www.open.ac.uk/science/fdtl/

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Gibbs and Simpson (2004)

• Assessment tasks Conditions 1-4
• Capture enough study time (in and out of class)
• Are spread out evenly across timeline of study
• Lead to productive activity (deep vs surface)
• Communicate clear and high expectations
• i.e concern here is with steers about how much
  work to do

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Background (1)

• Literature Review
• Nicol, D. Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative
  assessment and self-regulated learning A model
  and seven principles of good feedback practice.
  Studies in Higher Education, 34 (1), 199-218
• Nicol, D Milligan, C. (2006), Rethinking
  technology-supported assessment practices in
  relation to the seven principles of good feedback
  practice. In C. Bryan K. Clegg, Innovative
  assessment in higher education, Routledge.
• Background
• Student Enhanced Learning through Effective
  Feedback SENLEF project funded by HE Academy
• REAP project www.reap.ac.uk

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Current thinking

• Students are always engaged in self-assessment/sel
  f-regulation of their own learning (Winne, 2005
  Black Wiliam, 2005). Logically entailed by
  constructivist thinking
• The act of using teacher feedback implies that
  self-assessment must be present
• Feedback in HE is being reduced so how are
  students still learning
• The question is how can we scaffold students
  learning so they become better at self-regulation
  (Lajoie, 2005)

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Ideas in Practice

• Consider self and peers as much as the teacher as
  sources of Assessment and Feedback
• Tap into different qualities than teacher can
  provide
• Saves time
• Provides considerable learning benefits (LLL)
• Dont focus just on written feedback but every
  step of the cycle
• Understanding the task criteria (Sadler, 1983)
• Applying what was learned in action

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Scaffolding self regulation 7 principles of
good feedback (assessment design)

• Clarify what good performance is (goals,
  criteria, standards).
• Facilitate the development of reflection and
  self-assessment in learning
• Deliver high quality feedback to students that
  enables them to self-correct
• Encourage peer and student-teacher and peer
  dialogue around learning
• Encourage positive motivational beliefs self
  esteem through assessment
• Provide opportunities to act on feedback
• Provide information to teachers that can be used
  to help shape their teaching
• Source Nicol and
  Macfarlane-Dick (2006)

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Two super principles

• Super-principle 1 time on task and effort
  (engagement) i.e. steers on how much work to do
  and when Gibbs and Simpson 4 conditions
• Super-principle 2 developing learner
  self-regulation (empowerment/self-regulation) i.e
  steers to encourage ownership of learning the
  seven principles discussed above.
• Case examples from REAP applying these
  conditions/ principles

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REAP Example 1 Mechanical Engineering(personal
response systems)
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Problems identified

• Conceptual misunderstandings even after
  graduation (e.g. concept of force)
• Passive learning in classroom due to larger
  numbers
• Evidence of low levels of student motivation
  attendance
• Difficult to develop a sense of community amongst
  learners
• Retention issues (20)

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Course Redesign

• Looked worldwide for the best solution
• Focus on teaching core concepts
• Carefully constructed student workgroups
• Introduced personal response systems in lecture
  sessions (to facilitate peer discussion) as
  promoted by Mazur at Harvard
• Later linked this to online testing
• And to online homework system

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Personal Response System (PRS)
PRS was developed by Professor Nelson Cue at Hong
Kong University of Technology and has now been
adopted by hundreds of educators worldwide
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Benefits

• PRS promotes reflection on and peer discussion of
  reasoning behind difficult concepts
• Self, peer and tutor feedback in a single
  classroom session
• Improved understanding in standardised
  engineering tests (e.g. force concept inventory)
• Culture of collaborative learning established
• Students report enhanced satisfaction (fun!)
  compared to traditional lecture classes.
• High levels of time on task in class
• Dropout reduced from 20 to 3

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Some results
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The student experience

• Some student comments
• in this class everybodys involved, you have to
  think about whats being said
• you are learning from people around you its a
  language you can understand
• you feel you are keeping pace with the class
  and that everyone is learning together

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Relation to Gibbs Simpsons four assessment
conditions

• Web-based assessment tasks (MCQs and problem
  solving exercises) keep students engaged in
  out-of-class activities and EVS encourages
  engagement in class (condition 1)
• Activities are distributed across topics and
  weeks (condition 2)
• EVS tasks are designed to deepen learning as
  conceptual understanding increases (condition 3)
• EVS activities clearly communicate requirements
  and there is a progressive increase in challenge
  (communicates clear and high expectations,
  condition 4)

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Relationship to seven principles

• Learning goals clarified through iterative cycles
  of tutor presentation, tests and retests using
  MCQs in class (Principle 1)
• Reflection/self-assessment triggered through
  bar-chart presentation and by online tests
  (Principle 2)
• Teachers provide feedback at end of EVS
  concept-test sequence (Principle 3)
• Both teacher-student and peer dialogue occur in
  EVS interactive sessions (Principle 4)
• The focus on learning goals rather than
  performance goals in class and the staged
  difficulty of concept tests encourage
  motivational (Principle 5)
• The continuous cycle of tests, retests and
  feedback ensures that students can use the
  feedback immediately (Principle 6)
• Online MCQ tests and student performance in EVS
  lectures provide a range of feedback information
  that tutors can use adjust teaching to student
  needs (Principle 7)

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Other uses of PRS

• Diagnostic testing at beginning of year
• Community building induction activities and
  sharing data about student cohort
• Revision of lecture materials in class
• Formal examinations using multiple choice
  questions
• Evaluation data reactions to course
• Experiments where human responses being tested
  (voting in politics, visual illusions,
  questionnaires)
• Been used across a range of disciplines worldwide
• See resources section of www.reap.ac.uk website
  and D. Banks Audience Response Systems in Higher
  Education Applications and Cases, Information 
  Science Publishing, Hershey 2006

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Psychology

• 560 first year students
• Mixture of psychology majors (130) and those
  taking psychology only for one year (430)
• 6 topic areas, 48 lectures, 4 tutorials, 12
  practicals
• Assessment 2 x MCQs (25), tutorial attendance
  (4), taking part in experiment (5), essay exam
  (66)

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Problems identified

• No practice in writing skills but required in the
  exam
• More detail provided in lectures than mentioned
  in exams (not enough independent reading)
• No feedback except on MCQs (percent correct)
• Didnt want to increase staff workload
• Wanted to improve overall exam marks
• And standard of entrant to second year

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Discussion point

• What would you do to improve the student
  experience in first year psychology?
• You can use any technology (or combination of
  technologies) but you must consider costs and
  staff time constraints

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Psychology Redesign

• Discussion board in WebCT
• Students in 85 discussion groups of 7-8, same
  groups throughout year
• Series of online tasks
• Lecture on Monday, Friday lecture abolished
• Students to discover for themselves in
  collaboration with their group what would have
  been the topic of the Friday lecture

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Structure of group tasks

• 6 cycles of 3 weeks (one cycle x major course
  topic)
• First week light written task (e.g. define
  terms) 7 short answers (all answer)
• Second week guided reading
• Week three heavy written task students answer
  guided questions and then collaborate in writing
  a 700-800 word essay.
• Within each week
• The Monday lecture introducing material
• Immediately after lecture, task posted online
  for delivery the following Monday
• Model answers (selected from students) posted for
  previous weeks task

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The teaching role

• Participation in the discussions was compulsory
  but not marked (this year there is 2 mark for
  participation)
• The course leader provided general feedback to
  the whole class often motivational
• He encouraged students to give each other
  feedback
• And he selected the model answers
• The group discussions were not moderated
• Around 8 teaching assistants monitored the
  discussions and reported non-participation to the
  teacher

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  Online Project 1 Classical Conditioning
Phenomena.  
 Each Group Member should read the Passer chapter
from the beginning to at least as far the section
which begins Applications of Classical
Conditioning. Satisfy yourself that you can
answer EACH of the questions below. Then agree as
a group who will answer what.  Project 1 is to
answer these questions as fully as you can   1)
What type of response is susceptible to Classical
Conditioning?   2) Why does Extinction
occur?   3) What is Spontaneous Recovery?   4)
What does the phenomenon of Spontaneous Recovery
tell us about the nature of Extinction in
Classical Conditioning?   5) What is
Generalisation?   6) What is Discrimination?   7)
What is Higher Order Conditioning?  
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Project 9 An example of heavy task

• The Task 800 word essay
• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of Freuds
  and Eysencks theories of personality. Are the
  theories incompatible?
• readings suggested
• questions provided all should try
• and advice on how to divide task given

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Benefits

• Written responses of an exceedingly high standard
  (sometimes surpassing 3rd year)
• Spontaneous online discussions about learning and
  leaner responsibility
• High levels of motivation, atmosphere in class
  improved
• Some students burdened by workload easily
  detected
• Some requested to move groups (5 groups)
• Online interactions showed powerful scaffolding
• Interaction and feedback possible with 560
  students
• Easy for tutors to monitor participation
• Peer feedback and self feedback (model answers)
  harnessed
• Improved mean exam performance (up from 51-57)

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Has it worked?
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Online postings/interaction

• 24,362 messages posted by groups
• Average number of postings per student 44.3
• Most messages posted by single student 324
• 1067 postings to general open discussion forum
• Accumulated time students spent in psychology
  site was 1 year 37days 11 hours 56 mins
• Students set up online study groups for other
  subjects
• Structured tasks online triggered important
  social-cognitive processes

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Relation to the Gibbs Simpsons four
assessment conditions

• Tasks require significant study out of class
  (capture sufficient study time, condition 1)
• They are distributed across topics and weeks (are
  spread out evenly, condition 2)
• They move students progressively to deeper levels
  of understanding (productive/ deep learning,
  condition 3)
• There are explicit goals and progressive increase
  in challenge (communicates clear and high
  expectations, condition 4)

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Relation to 7 feedback principles

• Standard format and model answers provide
  progressive clarification of expectations (clear
  goals, principle 1)
• Students encouraged to self-assess against model
  answer (self-assessment, principle 2)
• Course leader provides motivational and
  meta-level feedback and selects model answers
  (teacher feedback, principle 3)
• Online peer discussion aimed at reaching
  consensus about response (dialogue, principle 4)
• Staged complexity, focus on learning not just
  marks, use of students model answers (motivation,
  principle 5)
• Repeated cycle of topics and tasks (closing gap,
  principle 6)
• VLE captures all interactions allowing course
  leader to monitor progress and adapt teaching
  (shaping teaching, principle 7)

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What can we learn from these case studies?

• Use of simple technologies (PRS, quiz/survey
  tool, discussion board)
• Considerable thought gone into the learning
  design which is transferable
• The drivers were learning improvements rather
  than technology (context of use)
• Key finding across studies was need to balance
  structure and learner control
• Also important is the way that the social and the
  academic processes are shown to be mutually
  supportive

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Discussion point

• Consider your own classes/modules/programmes
• Identify one or two ideas that you might use from
  todays presentation in the redesign of your
  teaching.
• Identify any questions raised in your discussion
  groups
• Plenary report back
• Be prepared to share an idea with others in the
  plenary and/or
• A question worth asking that might illuminate
  some important issue

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QAA Scotland Project Assessment and the First
Year Experience

• Use assessment and feedback as lever for
  transformation of the student experience
• Develop in students the ability to monitor,
  evaluate and regulate their own learning
  (engagement-empowerment)
• Foster learning groups and communities in the
  first year and beyond (academic-social
  integration)

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The Concepts

• Balancing engagement (time effort on task) and
  empowerment (opportunities to take control and
  manage own learning)
• Academic and social integration into the
  university use the academic to support the
  social and vice versa

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EMPOWERMENT/ SELF-REGULATION
SOCIAL EXPERIENCE
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
ENGAGEMENT
Figure 1 Assessment and feedback practices
dimensions of implementation
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• Good formative assessment and feedback practices
  should
• Help clarify what good performance is (goals,
  criteria, standards)
• Encourage time an effort on challenging
  learning tasks
• Deliver high quality feedback information that
  helps learners self-correct
• Provide opportunities to act on feedback
• Ensure that summative assessment supports
  formative learning processes
• Encourage interaction and dialogue around
  learning (peer, teacher-student)
• Facilitate the development of self-assessment and
  reflection in learning
• Give choice in the topic, method, criteria,
  weighting or timing of assessments.
• Involve students in decision-making about
  assessment policy and practice
• Support the development of learning groups and
  communities
• Encourage positive motivational beliefs and
  self-esteem
• Provide information to teachers that can be used
  to help shape their teaching

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Guidelines for Implementation (1)

• Implement the principles
• A single principle or many
• Active involvement of students
• Tight-loose maintain fidelity to the principles
  (tight) but encourage disciplines develop their
  own techniques of implementation (loose)

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EMPOWERMENT/ SELF-REGULATION

• Students create criteria
• Students add own criteria
• Students identify criteria from samples of work
• Exemplars of different performance levels
  provided
• Students rephrase criteria in own words
• Provide document with criteria

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
SOCIAL EXPERIENCE
ENGAGEMENT
Figure 2 Assessment and feedback practices
dimensions of implementation
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EMPOWERMENT/ SELF-REGULATION
SOCIAL EXPERIENCE
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE
6.Encourage interaction and dialogue around
learning (peer and teacher-student)
2. Encourage time effort on challenging
learning tasks

ENGAGEMENT
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EMPOWERMENT/ SELF-REGULATION
Students create MCQs and feedback for wrong and
right answers
6.Encourage interaction and dialogue around
learning (peer and teacher-student)
Students self-assess using MCQ and provide
confidence ratings
ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

SOCIAL EXPERIENCE
Students self-assess own performance using MCQs
ENGAGEMENT
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Guidelines for Implementation (2)

• Determine where ICT can add value
• Clarify students responsibilities
• Align responses to National Student Survey to the
  assessment principles
• Alternate solo and group work
• Evaluate change (PIs)
• Consider programme coherence
• Use principles as quality enhancement tool
• Share your learning and designs
• Quality enhancement

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Transforming AssessmentA blueprint for change
in the first year

• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Recommendations how to implement at module,
  course and institutional level
• A literature review how assessment and feedback
  can support empowerment and integration
• 12 principles of assessment and feedback practice
  ( questions to enhance quality)
• 100 examples and case studies illustrating
  implementation across the disciplines
• (see also www.reap.ac.uk)

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Some publications

• Nicol, D (2008), Transforming assessment and
  feedback Enhancing integration and empowerment
  in the first year, to be published by Quality
  Assurance Agency, Scotland (June)
• Nicol, D (in press), Assessment for learner
  self-regulation Enhancing achievement in the
  first year using learning technologies,
  Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education,
• Nicol, D (2007), Laying the foundation for
  lifelong learning cases studies of technology
  supported assessment processes in large first
  year classes, British Journal of Educational
  Technology, 38(4), 668-678
• Nicol, D (2007) E-assessment by design using
  multiple-choice tests to good effect, Journal of
  Further and Higher Education.31(1), 53-64.
• Nicol, D. Milligan, C. (2006), Rethinking
  technology-supported assessment in relation to
  the seven principles of good feedback practice.
  In C. Bryan and K. Clegg, Innovations in
  Assessment, Routledge.
• Nicol, D, J. Macfarlane-Dick (2006), Formative
  assessment and self-regulated learning A model
  and seven principles of good feedback practice,
  Studies in Higher Education, 31(2), 199-218.
• Boyle, J.T. and Nicol, D.J. (2003) Using
  classroom communication systems to support
  interaction and discussion in large class
  settings, Association for Learning Technology
  Journal, 11(3), 43-57
• Nicol, D.J. and Boyle, J.T. (2003), Peer
  interaction and class-wide discussion a
  comparison of two interaction methods in the
  wired classroom, Studies in Higher Education,
  28(4), 457-73
• See also www.reap.ac.uk