Presenting in Front of a Virtual Audience: A Synthesis of Research in Higher Education

While previous studies in educational sciences emphasized the essence of feedback on developing students’ oral presentation competence, it remains questionable how innovative technologies can successfully deliver high-quality feedback on such a competence. Recent experimental studies in this field revealed the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR) for increasing oral presentation competence and diminishing presentation anxiety. Due to both technological and educational developments, VR systems facilitate the translation of quantitative data into qualitative feedback messages, relating to presentation delivery aspects. This challenges current presentation curricula if the learner is able to individually interpret automatized and personalized feedback messages after rehearsing in front of virtual audiences. As a consequence, it questions to what extent teachers’ roles might change over time. This chapter synthesizes recent studies into a set of educational design principles for effective use of VR, discusses practical implications, and provides a future research agenda on this topic for the higher education context

Towards a Set of Design Principles for Computer-Mediated Feedback Fostering Teachers’ Pedagogical Skills: a Synthesis of the Literature

Developing pedagogical skills of teachers is an essential objective in teacher education. Although feedback from workplace supervisors is considered crucial for encouraging these skills in the first stages of teachers’ careers, delivering effective and just-in-time feedback is under pressure due to a teacher shortage in secondary education. Recent technological developments allow alternative sources to deliver feedback provided by innovative technologies. However, a comprehensive picture of effective characteristics of computer-mediated feedback (CMF) is lacking. Therefore, this review identifies studies with the aim of deducing a set of design principles for CMF fostering pedagogical skills. Subsequently, all studies were categorized with respect to learning environment characteristics, learning processes and learning outcomes. The synthesis is a set of principles including personalized, immediate and delayed feedback. Finally, a future research agenda focuses on how these principles could optimize innovative technologies to deliver feedback for teachers in daily practice

Fostering oral presentation competence through a virtual reality-based task for delivering feedback

While previous studies have stressed the importance of feedback delivered by experts, it is unclear whether students’ oral presentation competence can be fostered through innovative technology for delivering feedback. This experimental study examined the effectiveness of a virtual reality-based task, in which first-year undergraduate students practiced their presentation in a virtual environment and received feedback produced by the system, on their presentation competence components (i.e. cognition, behaviour and attitudes towards presenting). The effects were compared with a control condition, which was a face-to-face presentation task with expert feedback. The students’ performance was measured using pre- and post-test multiple-choice tests, validated rubrics, and self-evaluation instruments. Results revealed significant improvements from pre-test to post-test in all three presentation competence components, without a difference between the conditions. Furthermore, the self-evaluation tests showed that students who presented in virtual reality were appreciative of the detailed and analytical feedback they received. Because of sample size limitations, the effects found could not be generalised. Therefore, future research on a larger sample is needed to examine population effects. Follow-up studies should focus on the extent to which virtual reality-based tasks can encourage self-regulation skills for the effective and efficient integration of these tasks in presentation courses.</p

Fostering oral presentation competence in higher education

Presenting is considered as a core competence of the higher educated professional. However, it remains questionable how effective learning environments fostering presentation competence should be constructed. This thesis focuses on formulating evidence-based educational design principles. Further, research questions explore effective feedback processes within the context of realistic presentation skills courses. These studies verifies the potential impact of feedback sources, such as teachers, peers and the self, on developing students’ oral presentation competence. Besides studying the quality of differing feedback sources, Virtual Reality is studied as an alternative feedback mode encouraging students’ cognition, skills and attitudes towards presenting. The constructed VR-tool, based on the principles of this thesis, is already implemented in secondary education, higher education and the corporate sector.</p

Fostering oral presentation performance : does the quality of feedback differ when provided by the teacher, peers or peers guided by tutor?

Previous research revealed significant differences in the effectiveness of various feedback sources for encouraging students’ oral presentation performance. While former studies emphasised the superiority of teacher feedback, it remains unclear whether the quality of feedback actually differs between commonly used sources in higher education. Therefore, this study examines feedback processes conducted directly after 95 undergraduate students’ presentations in the following conditions: teacher feedback, peer feedback and peer feedback guided by tutor. All processes were videotaped and analysed using a coding scheme that included seven feedback quality criteria deduced from the literature. Results demonstrate that teacher feedback corresponds to the highest extent with the majority of the seven identified feedback quality criteria. For four criteria, peer feedback guided by tutor scores higher than peer feedback. Skills courses should incorporate strategies focused on discussing perceptions of feedback and practising providing feedback to increase the effectiveness of peer feedback

The impact of the feedback source on developing oral presentation competence

While previous research in higher education emphasized the essence of feedback by the teacher, the peer or the self, it remains unclear whether the acquisition of students' oral presentation competence differs depending on the feedback source. This quasi-experimental study examines the effectiveness of the feedback source on 144 first-year undergraduate students' progression in cognition, behaviour and attitude towards presenting, as three interrelated elements of oral presentation competence. Mixed methods of multiple-choice tests and performance assessments using rubrics were used for data collection. Results demonstrated the superiority of teacher feedback for encouraging students' presentation behaviour, while cognition and attitude towards presenting developed significantly irrespective of the particular feedback source. However, the self-assessment condition revealed less impact on developing presentation behaviour and attitude compared to other feedback sources. Optimizing peer feedback and self-assessment in curricula requires knowledge about underlying feedback processes characterizing successful feedback of the various sources

Teachers’ online teaching expectations and experiences during the Covid19-pandemic in the Netherlands

The COVID19-Pandemic has forced educators to transform their lessons into online versions in a short period of time. This study compares teachers’ perception regarding their online teaching expectations (prior to the transition to remote teaching) and experiences (after a month of online teaching). Two surveys were completed by 200 Dutch teachers. Results demonstrated a significant change in the perception of teachers regarding their resolutions to implement technology in their lessons in a post-corona era. In this regard, teachers’ gender and prior experiences with the use of ICT seem to play a small role. Findings of this study provide implications for the professionalisation of teachers, such as characteristics of teachers and intentions to implement technology in teaching, as well as experienced positive and negative aspects of online teaching. Future research should focus on constructing and testing educational design principles for effective professionalisation of teachers in adopting technology in their educational practices