Who’s Read My

Essay?

Public Assessment

and Student

Performance

2015 HETL Utah Conference

A/Prof Marj Kibby

Faculty of Education and Arts

School of Humanities and Social Science

January 22, 2015

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What are you good at?

•Think of something you are good at. No need to

reveal what it is!

•How do you know you are good at it?

•Share the indicators with your neighbour.

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Feedback

• You achieved your goals.

• You judged your performance against others.

• You judged your performance against

established criteria.

• Peers commented on your performance.

• Stakeholders commented on your

performance.

• An expert commented on your performance.

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Product or process

Assessment feedback can be:

•an end product, a consequence of a completed

activity.

•a sequential process that supports learning

(feed-up, feed-forward).

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Goals

The aims of feedback are:

• enabling the gap between the actual level of

performance and the desired outcome to be

bridged.

• assisting students gain new understandings

that enable them to amend their performance.

The emphasis in educational research has been

on feedback as a corrective tool; however it can

also be seen as a challenge tool.

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Student-centered

While the curriculum generally

has become more student-

centered, the assessment of

progress has remained strongly

instructor focussed (Nicol &

McFarlane-Dick, 2004).

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Effective feedback

• Focus on the task and performance of the task

not on the person.

• Be integrated with, or closely follow the task.

• Engage students to facilitate the development

of self-regulatory behaviour.

• Include both individual and group reports.

• Be an ongoing conversation between lecturers

and students.

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Satisfaction with feedback

Students complain that feedback is not sufficiently

immediate, does not justify the grade given, does

not tell them how to improve performance, is too

personal, is not sufficiently personal, is too

detailed, or not detailed enough, or that feedback

does not reflect their understanding of

requirements.

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Satisfaction with feedback

Issues for lecturers revolve around the perception

that students do not make use of feedback, not

acting on advice or following up on explanations

and suggestions.

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Feedback not read

•Students view the mark as more important than

the comments.

•The feedback isn't timely, and they have ‘moved

on’.

•Future assessments seem to provide no

opportunity to demonstrate improvement.

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Effect of grades on feedback

Receiving a grade at the same time as

commentary on performance leads students to

concentrate on the grade at the expense of the

feedback.

Lipnevich and Smith (2008) found the effect of the

grade may lead students to become depressed

about their performance, leading them to be less

disposed to put forth the necessary effort to

improve their work.

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Separating grades and feedback

Grading and feedback are both complex

processes, with different functions and varying

effects, and there are significant benefits in

separating them.

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Public assessment

Traditionally assessable work was only seen by

the person responsible for grading the work.

Now there are alternatives to the typed and

printed essay that provide an opportunity for a

broader readership for student work.

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Case Study — Popular Culture

FMCS2200

Learning objectives:

This course explores the relationships between popular culture and society; it

assists students in developing the skills that will enable them to:

• Analyse the influence of new technologies on concepts of identity, gender,

race and the body.

• Construct a critical argument regarding the issues surrounding popular

culture.

• Apply theory critically in a case study of popular culture.

Assessment:

• Weekly quizzes

• Case study

• Twitter essays

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Twitter essay

Write an essay about #culturechange in 140 characters that expresses an

opinion on appropriation, imperialism and/or reinvention of cultural

artefacts.

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Comparative grades

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Fail Pass CR DI HD

2012

2013

2014

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Student feedback

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Case study — Music & Culture

FMCS2100

Learning objectives:

On completion of the course students will be able to:

• Critique the roles of music in culture.

• Explain the ideological assumptions of music culture.

• Apply cultural theories in independent research on music.

Assessment:

• My Music auto-ethnography

• PowerPoint grant application

• Music blog

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Music blog

Read Hesmondhalgh's case study of how music can bring people together, A night out. Write a case

study based on your own experience of one of the functions of music in everyday life, drawing on the

module introduction and one or more of the suggested readings. Go beyond description to discuss or

analyse the situation. This case study is of the social function of music (its use in interpersonal

relationships), but you could write up an example of any of Merriam's functions.

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Comparative grades

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Fail Pass CR DI HD

2012

2014

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Student feedback

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Case study — Digital Culture

FMCS3100

Learning objectives:

The course will explore the relationship between digital technologies and culture,

assisting students to develop knowledge and skills that will enable them to:

• Utilise a range of digital information and communication technologies;

• Engage in contemporary debates on the implications of digital culture;

• Identify and critically analyse key issues emerging from recent research into digital

culture;

• Apply appropriate research strategies to digital communication and culture.

Assessment:

• Participation in discussion forum.

• Production project using online creation and publication tools.

• Research project to contribute to Wikipedia.

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Wikipedia

Students were given a choice of several topics to research, topics that

corresponded with Wikipedia articles that were largely ignored stubs: what the

Internet is doing to our brains, the Vlogger Rebecca Brown, online politics,

and digital detox. They used their research to update the Wikipedia articles.

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Comparative grades

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Fail Pass CR DI HD

2012

2013

2014

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Student feedback

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Feedback as social practice

Conversations around performance have taken place across the different

communities that students inhabit, so that feedback becomes a social practice.

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