The Study of Teacher Written Feedback: The Effectiveness of Electronic Feedback on Student Writing Revisions

The effectiveness of teacher written feedback has been a subject of debate in second language writing for decades. The most basic debate in this area among ESL writing researchers is whether teacher written feedback in various forms has any positive effects on student writing revisions. Among other researchers, Ferris, Lee, Ene & Upton and Stevenson & Phakiti argued that while the effectiveness of error feedback in the traditional paper-and-pen form (Ferris, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006 and Lee, 2008a, 2008b), computer-facilitated form (Ene & Upton, 2014) or computer-generated form (Stevenson & Phakiti, 2013) was not conclusive, more research should be done to explore in what ways error feedback can be improved. Indeed, the heterogeneity of these studies characterized by different focus, research designs, institutional and instructional contexts, and participant backgrounds, alongside some methodological flaws and misinterpretation of findings identified in my critical review has possibly undermined the validity and reliability of the studies, giving rise to these mixed results for both paper-and-pen feedback and computer-based feedback. As such, the causality between different forms of feedback treatment and their outcomes of error reduction is questioned. With the primary interest in improving the effectiveness of teacher written feedback in error correction, ‘Mark My Words’ (‘MMWs’), the interactive-based electronic feedback system, was designed in such a way to accommodate individual learners’ language needs and to be more responsive to various error types. This study focused on examining on the effectiveness of ‘Mark My Words’ (‘MMWs’), as a kind of computer-facilitated feedback (i.e. electronic feedback), in improving students’ error reduction in their writing revisions, under a controlled condition. The mixed methods approach was adopted, namely the ‘error count’ method and ‘questionnaire’, in this study. The participants were 62 second-year engineering students enrolled in an English for Specific Purposes course in a Hong Kong University. Efforts were made to avoid the impact of extraneous variables on the validity and reliability of the research outcomes under such controlled condition. The positive results of this study can contribute some sort of concrete evidence to the growing body of literature of the ‘effectiveness of teacher written feedback’ and ‘second language writing’, thus clarifying some mixed results of the previous research

Real-time Immersive human-computer interaction based on tracking and recognition of dynamic hand gestures

With fast developing and ever growing use of computer based technologies, human-computer interaction (HCI) plays an increasingly pivotal role. In virtual reality (VR), HCI technologies provide not only a better understanding of three-dimensional shapes and spaces, but also sensory immersion and physical interaction. With the hand based HCI being a key HCI modality for object manipulation and gesture based communication, challenges are presented to provide users a natural, intuitive, effortless, precise, and real-time method for HCI based on dynamic hand gestures, due to the complexity of hand postures formed by multiple joints with high degrees-of-freedom, the speed of hand movements with highly variable trajectories and rapid direction changes, and the precision required for interaction between hands and objects in the virtual world. Presented in this thesis is the design and development of a novel real-time HCI system based on a unique combination of a pair of data gloves based on fibre-optic curvature sensors to acquire finger joint angles, a hybrid tracking system based on inertia and ultrasound to capture hand position and orientation, and a stereoscopic display system to provide an immersive visual feedback. The potential and effectiveness of the proposed system is demonstrated through a number of applications, namely, hand gesture based virtual object manipulation and visualisation, hand gesture based direct sign writing, and hand gesture based finger spelling. For virtual object manipulation and visualisation, the system is shown to allow a user to select, translate, rotate, scale, release and visualise virtual objects (presented using graphics and volume data) in three-dimensional space using natural hand gestures in real-time. For direct sign writing, the system is shown to be able to display immediately the corresponding SignWriting symbols signed by a user using three different signing sequences and a range of complex hand gestures, which consist of various combinations of hand postures (with each finger open, half-bent, closed, adduction and abduction), eight hand orientations in horizontal/vertical plans, three palm facing directions, and various hand movements (which can have eight directions in horizontal/vertical plans, and can be repetitive, straight/curve, clockwise/anti-clockwise). The development includes a special visual interface to give not only a stereoscopic view of hand gestures and movements, but also a structured visual feedback for each stage of the signing sequence. An excellent basis is therefore formed to develop a full HCI based on all human gestures by integrating the proposed system with facial expression and body posture recognition methods. Furthermore, for finger spelling, the system is shown to be able to recognise five vowels signed by two hands using the British Sign Language in real-time

Effectiveness of Two Keyboarding Instructional Approaches on the Keyboarding Speed, Accuracy, and Technique of Elementary Students

Background: Keyboarding skill development is important for elementary students. Limited research exists to inform practice on effective keyboarding instruction methods. Method: Using a quasi-experimental design, we examined the effectiveness of Keyboarding Without Tears® (n = 786) in the experimental schools compared to the control schools who used the district standard instructional approach of free web-based activities (n = 953) on improving keyboarding skills (speed, accuracy, and technique) in elementary students. Results: The results showed significant improvements in keyboarding speed and accuracy in all schools for all grades favoring the experimental schools compared to the control schools. Significant differences in improvements in keyboarding technique were found with large effect sizes favoring the experimental schools for kindergarten to the second grade and small effect sizes favoring the control schools for the third to fifth grade. Conclusion: Professionals involved in assisting with keyboarding skill development in children are recommended to begin training in these skills in early elementary grades, especially to assist in proper keyboarding technique development. While using free web-based activities are beneficial to improving keyboarding speed and accuracy, as well as keyboarding technique, using a developmentally-based curriculum, such as Keyboarding Without Tears®, may further enhance improvements in the keyboarding skills of elementary students

Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment

Examines whether classroom-based formative writing assessment - designed to provide students with feedback and modified instruction as needed - improves student writing and how teachers can improve such assessment. Suggests best practices

Learning support for mature, part-time, evening students: providing feedback via frequent, computer-based assessments

A new module in our first year Biology curriculum was used as a vehicle to test strategies for improving learning support. To this end, we have administered frequent CBA, incorporating extensive feedback, both to pace the students’ study efforts and to pinpoint areas in which additional help from lecturers may be required. Three of the 7 CBA provided through the 15-week course were initially given as open-book summative tests, thus contributing to the overall mark for the module. Other CBA were formative: these included repeats of the summative CBA made available for revision purposes, as well as other CBA which focused mainly on aspects of the course that were summatively assessed by other means. A closedbook final exam, also computer-based, was given in the final week as a comprehensive assessment. We have evaluated the utility and effectiveness of our approach by surveying student opinion via questionnaires, examining patterns and extent of student use of formative assessments, and by analysing grades for the summative CBA. We have found the students’ perceptions of the approach to be largely positive and that the formative CBA were well-used, especially as revision aids for the final exam. Our analysis further indicates that the style of the assessments may have been especially helpful to students whose first language is not English

Introductory programming: a systematic literature review

As computing becomes a mainstream discipline embedded in the school curriculum and acts as an enabler for an increasing range of academic disciplines in higher education, the literature on introductory programming is growing. Although there have been several reviews that focus on specific aspects of introductory programming, there has been no broad overview of the literature exploring recent trends across the breadth of introductory programming. This paper is the report of an ITiCSE working group that conducted a systematic review in order to gain an overview of the introductory programming literature. Partitioning the literature into papers addressing the student, teaching, the curriculum, and assessment, we explore trends, highlight advances in knowledge over the past 15 years, and indicate possible directions for future research