Students’ Enactment of Feedback Through a Series of Graded Low-Stake Learning-Oriented Presentations.

Abstract

For feedback to be effective, students must have opportunities to take action based on information provided. We explored students’ enactment of feedback and enhanced learning behaviours through a series of graded low-stake learning-oriented presentations. 70 final year International Business undergraduate students at a UK university were assessed by peers and staff on eight group presentations each contributing 2.5% to their final grade. This allowed for dialogic peer feedback, presentation skill improvement, knowledge exchange, critique and enactment of feedback in subsequent presentations (Carless, 2013b, Bearman et al, 2014, Nicol et al, 2014). Central to the dialogic nature of the peer feedback interactions was the meaning making and influence this had upon students’ future learning behaviours (Ajjawi & Boud, 2017; Yang & Carless, 2013). Students were surveyed about their experience at the beginning, mid-point and end of the module. Data were thematically analysed. At the beginning, students were positive about the challenge of working in groups, but concerned about the amount of work required and their peers work ethic. At the midpoint students reported, their knowledge had deepened. At the end of the module, students felt their presentation skills and confidence had improved. However, they felt the presentations required a lot of work for a small weighting. The students’ perceptions of peer feedback fluctuated. At the beginning, students were positive about the potential for using peer feedback for improvement in their next presentation. At the midpoint and end of the module, the vast majority said they had used peer feedback to address identified weaknesses in their next presentation. A minority suggested peer feedback was superficial and not useable. Most students reflected that the assessment had deepened their approach to learning and their use of feedback in similar assessments in other modules. A few students reported that the feedback was not transferable to other assessments. Overall, it appears that many students welcomed the incentive to work throughout the module on multiple, low-stakes presentations, enacted the peer feedback and perceived that their learning had improved. The students’ grade outcomes support these contentions. After presentation one the average grade was 62.6 % (±8.26), at the mid-point of the module the average grade was 70.1% (±8.69) and on the final presentation the average grade was 75.1% (±9.8). These results are an indication that despite the relatively low weighting, an integrated feedback and assessment regime helps students to enact feedback, increases their learning and improves performance