learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Rachel Fitzgerald
“The survey was helpful in a way but it didn't make things clear in depth.. I'd prefer a
written feedback instead for the same reason that my mistakes were not justified in a
clear manner.. overall satisfied with it!”
“it felt a bit brief, I felt that had it been written there would have been comments
throughout the assignment and therefore more feedback.”
“For me, there is no difference between audio and text feedback”
Of the rest of general qualitative comments the response is again not particularly in favour of audio, if
anything it suggests that written feedback is more purposeful for these students. It would be
interesting to have measured whether these responses came from students that received the initial
recordings whether tone may have been more enthused or the end of the recordings when the tone
may have been more perfunctory.
8. Conclusions and general reflection
The JISC guide to effective practice lists digital audio as a tool for “improving the quality of feedback”
JISC (2009 p19) but as Rust (2001) advises, when class sizes go up there is likely to be more
“superficial feedback” returned to the student. This research established that this is also the case
when using audio feedback although it is packaged in a more personal way. Feedback from the
students through the various data collection methods suggests that they found the experience more
personal and therefore valued the approach over the more traditional scrawl of handwritten feedback.
Kerr & McLaughlin (2008) suggest that regardless of feedback style, quality personal feedback makes
students feel cared for and that they are thought of as individuals, and as this is difficult to achieve in
large cohorts, this must be something that needs to be considered, when looking at method. The next
assignment on this module will receive traditional feedback as the numbers are too great to go with
audio feedback again. If I were to use audio again, I think I would prefer to work with a smaller cohort
and evaluate the impact across different assignments for the same module as I think the quality of the
recordings would be better and less repetitive and it would offer opportunity to consider the impact of
tone on how the student receives the feedback. Considering a student learning styles and their
reception to method of feedback may also warrant further study. In a future cycle I would look for an
alternative to the VLE, possibly Dropbox or another Web 2.0 shared space, and find a method that
incorporated audio and text. This research suggests that audio feedback alone would not support an
international DL student but needs a combination of audio and written feedback, so a future project
may consider the Fish & Lumadue (2010) project that uses Jing, software that enables a tutor to
merge a text response with audio, something they recommend as a 21 st century yet simple approach.
Kerr and McLaughlin (2008) say that the tutors involved in their research would not repeat their
attempt at video feedback. The general view, they report, is that the exercise was pointless in terms of
time and benefit. From this cycle, I would say that Audio Feedback is a simple method but more
suited to smaller groups of students. It can be adopted with ease and requires very little technical
skills. The process of recording feedback is faster than writing it and it offers a personal response to
students that is hard to achieve with any written method. Brown (2001) says one of the problems with
feedback is that it is not always there when students need it; digital audio offers a solution to this, as it
can be listened to anytime, although this could also be the case with typed electronic feedback. What
does set Audio Feedback apart is the voice and tone of the tutor talking to the student, making
feedback less ambiguous and providing a level of personalisation that fits in with NUS
recommendations and gained the approval of the students involved in this research and even if the
only benefit is that the student feels the marking is personal, then the technique is worth further
investigation, Kerr & McLaughlan (2008).
References
Bols, A. (2010) What Students Want: feedback on assessment; Educational Developments; SEDA; 11:4; 7
Brown, G. (2001) Assessment: A Guide for Lecturers. LTSN Assessment Series: No 3; York, LTSN Generic
Centre.
Copley, J. (2007) Audio and Video Podcasts of lectures for campus-based students: production and evaluation of
student use; Innovations in Education and Teaching International; 44:4; 387-399
Ferrance, E. (2000). Action research. Providence, RI: Brown University, Northeast and Islands Regional
Educational Laboratory.
Fish, W., Lumadue, R. (2010) A Technologically Based Approach to Providing Quality Feedback to Students: A
Paradigm Shift for the 21 st Century; Academic Leadership The Online Journal [online]
http://www.academicleadership.org/article/A_Technologically_Based_Approach_to_Providing_Quality_Feed
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