Enhancing Undergraduate Student Uptake of Feedback Across Disciplines: Instructor and Student Perspectives
Date
2021-12
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Abstract
This dissertation is comprised of three manuscripts that investigate effective feedback processes in higher education. Each manuscript explores a different research question using a design-based research methodology through the lens of a social constructivist framework. The research questions are: 1) What barriers do instructors experience in providing effective feedback? 2) What barriers do undergraduate students experience when attempting to use feedback effectively to improve their written work? 3) Which feedback processes enable learners to use feedback to improve the quality of their written work? and 4) How do instructors design effective feedback processes? Five instructors were engaged from four different disciplines at a large, research-intensive university in a series of focus groups during the Winter 2020 semester. Students were recruited from one of each of the instructors’ courses to participate in a pre-survey at the beginning of the semester reflecting on their experiences with feedback in the previous semester, a post-survey at the end of the semester reflecting on their experiences with feedback in the Winter 2020 semester, and three focus groups throughout the semester. The goal of this research was to develop set of design principles to inform the planning and implementation of effective feedback processes. These principles are based on a conceptual framework in which both students and instructors are active participants and suggests that effective feedback processes must be built upon high quality feedback, must consider contextual constraints on resources, and include an active student role as part of the process. These principles are an important contribution to the field of feedback literacy as they both build upon and simplify previous attempts at principles and models for instructors to implement.
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assessment of learning, feedback, instructor and student perspectives, feedback processes, feedback literacy
Citation
Paris, B. M. (2021). Enhancing undergraduate student uptake of feedback across disciplines: instructor and student perspectives (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.