Within the new feedback paradigm, the concept of student and teacher feedback literacy is gaining more and more attention, with most studies focussing on what it entails and how it can be supported ...by design. This paper contributes to this, by focussing on what students can do with feedback information. It proposes an instructional model for student feedback processes with the student activities seeking-, making sense of-, using- and responding to feedback information and specific prompts all four activities. Following Vygotsky, the model is built on the premise that effective feedback processes take place in social interaction with a more knowledgeable peer in the Zone of Proximal Development. In doing so, this is the first paper that addresses what students can do to contribute to scaffolded learning from feedback. The instructional model can be used by students to process feedback information and can be used by teachers to scaffold students' feedback processes. So, it is intended to support both student and teacher feedback literacy and their interplay. Future studies need to empirically validate the effectiveness of this instructional model.
We investigated the relation between providing and receiving audio peer feedback with a deep approach to learning within online education. Online students were asked to complete peer feedback ...assignments. Data through a questionnaire with 108 respondents and 14 interviews were used to measure to what extent deep learning was perceived and why. Results support the view that both providing and receiving audio peer feedback indeed promote deep learning. As a consequence of the peer feedback method, the following student mechanisms were triggered: “feeling personally committed,” “probing back and forth,” and “understanding one's own learning process.” Particularly important for both providing and receiving feedback is feeling personally committed. Results also show that mechanisms were a stronger predictor for deep learning when providing than when receiving. Given the context in which instructors face an increasing number of students and a high workload, students may be supported by online audio peer feedback as a method to choose a deep approach to learning.
Lay Description
What is already known about this topic:
Higher education aims to promote deep approaches to learning among students and increasingly provides education online.
From face‐to‐face education, we know that it is oral interaction that plays a major role in promoting deep approaches to learning and students perceive that as more personal than written feedback.
But interaction in online education usually takes place in a written way due to the demand for student participation that is independent of space and time.
The audio feedback in earlier studies had been provided by instructors, not by peers.
Earlier studies also focused more on receiving peer feedback rather than providing feedback.
What this paper adds:
Both providing and receiving audio peer feedback lead to perceived deep approaches to learning.
The following student mechanisms were triggered: “feeling personally committed,” “probing back and forth,” and “understanding one own's learning process.”
Particularly important, both for providing and receiving feedback, is feeling personally committed.
Results also show that the student mechanisms were a stronger predictor for a deep approach to learning when providing than when receiving feedback.
We suggest that audio peer feedback makes great demands on feeling personally committed and as a consequence both feedback providers and feedback receivers choose a deep approach to learning.
Implications for practice and/or policy:
Results may help instructors identify where, how, and why audio peer feedback practices might be used to promote a deep approach to learning in online education.
Instructors should provide sufficient instruction about how to provide feedback aimed for a deep approach to learning, and more specifically on how to record and publish and listen to audio peer feedback.
Despite the importance of goals in educational theories, goals in master's thesis projects are rarely investigated. Therefore, this study explores how goals play a role in master's thesis supervision ...in terms of: defining the goals (up-component); locating where the student stands in relation to the goals (back-component); and how the student can more closely reach the goals (forward-component). Twelve supervisors and students were interviewed and the adaptive approach of supervision emerged as a recurrent theme. Applying qualitative content analysis, findings indicated that the role of goals can be described as: aiming to reach the goals (up-component) by adapting supervision strategies (forward-component), based on students' specific needs and where they stand (back-component). This was termed 'adaptivity'. Providing adaptive supervision can also involve tensions concerning the level of regulation and the severity of their critique (ranging from mild to heavy-handed). Findings are discussed in relation to other studies concerning research supervision.
To prepare medical students for a rapidly changing healthcare landscape, where new means of communication emerge, innovative teaching methods are needed. We developed a project-based learning course ...in which medical students design audiovisual patient information in collaboration with patients and with students in Communication and Information Sciences (CIS). We studied what learning mechanisms are triggered in medical students by elements of a project-based-learning course.
In this qualitative study, twelve sixth year medical students that participated in the course were individually interviewed. Data were analyzed according to the principles of qualitative template analysis.
We identified four learning mechanisms: Challenging assumptions about patients’ information needs; Becoming aware of the origin of patients’ information needs; Taking a patient’s perspective; Analyzing language to adapt to patients’ needs. These learning mechanisms were activated by making a knowledge clip, collaborating with patients, and collaborating with CIS students.
Collaborating with patients helped students to recognize and understand patients’ perspectives. Working on a tangible product in partnership with patients and CIS students, triggered students to apply their understanding in conveying information back to patients.
Based on our findings we encourage educators to involve patients as collaborators in authentic assignments for students so they can apply what they learned from taking patients’ perspectives.
•We describe a project-based learning course to develop patient information.•Medical students cooperated with a patient and a communication student.•Communication students gave advice on communication and offered a layman perspective.•Collaborating with patients helped students to understand patients’ perspectives.•Cocreating patient information enabled students to apply this understanding.
The importance of generic skills for life scientists is commonly recognised by employers, graduates, and higher education institutes. As it remains unclear which generic skills are relevant for ...different life sciences career paths, this study aims to give an overview to inform and inspire universities and students, by analysing 179 Dutch entry-level job postings. We deductively coded nine career paths, namely: life sciences industry, PhD-student, quality compliance, research-related, sales & business, communication/education, information technology, consultancy, and policy. We coded generic skills using an adapted categorisation consisting of 46 generic skills within four categories, which were: self, others, information, and tasks. The descriptive statistics and cluster analysis results showed that although language, communication, and collaboration were the most requested skills, differences in requested generic skills between career paths and cluster composition were observed as well. We concluded that although some generic skills are important in general, other generic skills are relevant for specific life sciences career paths. To educate skilled life scientists, universities should consider the flexible integration of these generic skills in their life sciences programmes.
Master's thesis supervision is a complex task given the two-fold goal of the thesis (learning and assessment). An important aspect of supervision is the supervisor-student relationship. This ...quantitative study (N = 401) investigates how perceptions of the supervisor-student relationship are related to three dependent variables: final grade, perceived supervisor contribution to learning, and student satisfaction. The supervisor-student relationship was conceptualised by means of two interpersonal dimensions: control and affiliation. The results indicated that a greater degree of affiliation was related to higher outcome measures. Control was positively related to perceived supervisor contribution to learning and satisfaction, but, for satisfaction, a ceiling effect occurred. The relation between control and the final grade was U-shaped, indicating that the average level of perceived control is related to the lowest grades. The results imply that it is important for supervisors to be perceived as highly affiliated and that control should be carefully balanced.
A growing body of research has investigated student perceptions of written feedback in higher education coursework, but few studies have considered feedback perceptions in one-on-one and face-to-face ...contexts such as master's thesis projects. In this article, student perceptions of feedback are explored in the context of the supervision of master's thesis projects, using review studies with respect to effective feedback in coursework situations. Online questionnaires were administered to collect data from three cohorts of master's students who were either working on their thesis or had recently finished it (N = 1016). The results of the study indicate that students perceive the focus of feedback in terms of a focus on task and self-regulation; they perceive the goal-relatedness of feedback in terms of feed up (goal-setting) and feed back-forward (how am I going and where to next?); and elaboration of feedback is perceived in terms of positive and negative feedback. Furthermore, students that perceive the feedback to be positive, and to provide information on how they are going and what next steps to take, are the most satisfied with their supervision and perceive they are learning most from their supervisor. The findings are discussed in relation to findings in coursework settings, and are explained using goal orientation theories.
This study is focused on how peer feedback in SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses) can effectively lead to deep learning. Promoting deep learning in online courses, such as SPOCs, is often a ...challenge. We aimed for deep learning by reinforcement of ‘feedback dialogue’ as scalable intervention.
Students provided peer feedback as a dialogue, both individually and as a group. They were instructed to rate each other's feedback, which was aimed at deep learning. Data from questionnaires from 41 students of a master epidemiology course were used to measure for each feedback assignment to what extent deep learning was perceived. The feedback received by students who scored extremely high or low on the questionnaire was analyzed in order to find out which features of the feedback led to deep learning. In addition, students were interviewed to retrieve information about the underlying mechanisms.
The results support the view that peer feedback instruction and peer feedback rating lead to peer feedback dialogues that, in turn, promote deep learning in SPOCs. The value of peer feedback appears to predominantly result from the dialogue it triggers, rather than the feedback itself. Especially helpful for students is the constant attention to how one provides peer feedback: by instruction, by having to rate feedback and therefore by repeatedly having to reflect. The dialogue is strengthened because students question feedback from peers in contrast to feedback from their instructor. As a result, they continue to think longer and deeper, which enables deep learning.
•This study shows how peer feedback in SPOCs effectively leads to deep learning.•Peer feedback instruction and peer feedback rating lead to peer feedback dialogues.•Value of peer feedback appears to predominantly result from dialogue it triggers.•Dialogue is strengthened because students question feedback from peers.•Dialogical feedback serves as scalable way for instructors to promote deep learning.
Several researchers have suggested the importance of being responsive to students' needs in research supervision. Adapting support strategies to students' needs in light of the goals of a task is ...referred to as adaptivity. In the present study, the practice of adaptivity is explored by interviewing expert thesis supervisors about diagnosing student characteristics in order to determine students' needs and concurrent adaptive support strategies. The findings suggest that next to competence, supervisors also diagnose elements of students' determination and context. With respect to support strategies, it is suggested that supervisors adapt to student needs in terms of explicating standards, quality or consequences, division of responsibilities, providing more/less critical feedback and sympathising. The complexity of the relationship between diagnosing student characteristics and adapting support strategies is illustrated and needs further study.
Engagement with homework assignments is important to be able to actively process content during in-class activities in flipped classroom education. Active engagement with the content is assumed to ...promote deeper understanding and to improve retention of knowledge. This comparative case study aims to explore student workload during homework activities and examines in-class activities next to student motivation and their retention of knowledge in both traditional education and flipped classrooms.
This quasi-experimental study was conducted in a Hematology and Oncology course, which is scheduled in the second year of medical education, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Students’ self-reported study time in traditional classrooms (2014) and flipped classrooms (2015) were measured during one course with a daily online questionnaire and in-class activities were explored using an observation scheme and audio recordings. Cognitive evaluation theory was used to investigate student motivation by measuring perceived autonomy and competence (self-efficacy) of students at the end of the course. Knowledge retention and self-efficacy were (again) measured after 10 months.
The in-class observations suggested more interactivity in flipped classrooms. All participating students reported similar workload during the course, whereas exam preparation after flipped classrooms was significantly less time consuming. Students in flipped classrooms reported higher scores for self-efficacy, whereas perceived autonomy was comparable to students learning in traditional classrooms. Ten months after the course, retention of knowledge and self-efficacy scores showed no difference.
This study indicated that flipped classroom education required less time investment when preparing for the end-of-course exam and students perceived higher self-efficacy, which is relevant in the light of student stress and burn-out. However, comparison of long-term measurements (retention of knowledge and self-efficacy) showed similar outcomes for students in traditional classrooms and flipped classrooms. It would be interesting to learn whether students trained in flipped classroom education turn out to be better problem solvers in their future careers. For example, if the students in this study are better able to handle patient cases during their clinical rotations.
•Student workload during flipped classrooms was similar, whereas exam preparation was significantly less time consuming.•Teachers in flipped classrooms spend less time on factual knowledge as opposed to in-depth information.•The in-class observations suggest more interactivity in flipped classrooms, but this was not significant.•Students in flipped classrooms perceive higher self-efficacy compared to students in traditional education.•Retention of knowledge and self-efficacy scores showed no difference after ten months.
PDF
