Assessment and Feedforward
UoH L&T Conference 2015
Bob Stead & Paul Smith
The current studies – (Level 5 Organisational Psychology)
 Two studies spanning the last two years (2013/2014 & 2014/2-15) to explore:
 The issues related to group assessment
 The usefulness of feedforward
 These two issues have NSS and implications
 Students offered the opportunity of submitting draft chapters
.
 Written and face-to-face feedback in dedicated tutorials
 The assumption was that students would engage at an early stage and produce high quality
reports
Measures
 Group functioning – E.g. Solutions were developed, Attempts were made to resolve issues
(loosely based on Tuckman & Jensen).
 Student assessment preference
 Anxiety and Depression (Fletcher 1999)
 Assessment issues ( E.g. deadlines, feedback, clarity, assessment demands)
 Psychological safety - An original scale constructed by Stead (2007) which attempts to
measure self-image from an internal and external perspective. Deemed to be associated with
social and emotional intelligence. Example items: I feel insecure, I feel I let myself down, I feel
hurt because people don’t praise me, I fall out with people.
 Assessment grades
 Feedback take-up
The Guardian Higher Education Network
Findings related to feedback/feedforward
•
•
Feedback did not help some students achieve what they originally indicated would be a desirable
grade.
Mean grade for the 2013/2014 study was 50%. For 2014/2015 it was 54%. 2012/2013 students
achieved 53% (without feedforward)
Table 1. Advice given/acted upon (2013/2014)
 Feedback assessed with regard to advice given in
draft ,& advice acted upon in final report (r = .79, p<0.01)
•
The higher grade reports did utilise the feedback.
•
A box of management
reports to be dumped
in the bin
Advices given Advices acted on
The Guardian Higher Education Network
6
3
9
5
4
4
3
6
0
2
3
3
2
0
2
2
1
5
4
4
3
1
4
0
2
0
4
6
4
3
Percentage Grade
100% acted
on
83
0% acted on
51
22% acted on
50
60% acted on
51
75% acted on
63
50% acted on
61
0% acted on
46
100% acted
on
69
100% acted
on
72
80% acted on
70
0% acted on
55
50% acted on
43
0% acted on
41
100% acted
on
72
50% acted on
41
The findings
2013/2015
2014/2015
•
Borderline Clinical & Clinical levels of Anxiety
32%
36%
•
Borderline Clinical & Clinical levels of Depression
11%
24%
The Guardian Higher Education Network
Group assessment (2013/2014)
Table 2. Student assessment preference
Individual assessment
Mixed assessment
Group assessment
46%
32%
22%
Table 3. Assessment preference & achievement (based on mean grades for all 1st and 2nd
year grades)
Individual preference
Mixed preference
Group preferences
Exam
59.2
53.0
57.0
Group
57.1
64.2
59.4
The Guardian Higher Education Network
Individual
66.1
55.3
57.0
Mixed
62.1
56.3
59.3
Assessment preference and psychological factors (2013/2014)
Table 4. Assessment preference & personal characteristics (%)
Psychological Safety
Group functioning’
Individual
Preference
63
64
Mixed
preference
77
78
The Guardian Higher Education Network
Group
preference
75
75
How individual factors are associated with assessment
Table 5. Personal factors and coursework assessment grades (2013/2104)
Coursework grade x Psychological safety
r = .45
p<0.007
Coursework grade x Anxiety
r = -.41
p<0.01
Group assessment x Group functioning
r = .56
p<0.000
Table 6. Personal factors and coursework assessment grades (2014/2015)
Psychologically safe students significantly higher on assessment total (F = 8.4, df = 1, p,0.005)
Coursework 57% vs 60%
Exam 50% vs 60%
The Guardian Higher Education Network
University for some, is an unsafe place (2014/2015)
•
Students in the low psychologically safe group perceive the world differently and more negatively
compared to the the high psychologically safe group.
 Knowing how to go about getting things done (F = 5.7, df = 1, p<0.019)
 Unachievable deadlines (F = 7.9, df = 1, p<0.006
 Friction between fellow students (F = 14. 6, df = 1, p<0.000)
 Taking responsibility for learning (F = 3.7. df = 1, p<0.05)
 Good at meeting deadlines (F = 9.9, df = 1, p<0.002)
 Managing time (F = 4.3, df = 1, p<0.04
 Self discipline (F = 7.2, df = 1, p<o.009)
 Motivated by assessment deadlines ( F = 5.9, df = 1, p<0.017)
The implications - Feedback
•
Students who utilise feedback do achieve higher grades BUT:
 Too many students do not appear to have a clue with regard to what feedback is or how to use it
 Feedback is expensive. The feedback I give to my students costs me, not the university
 A resource issue
•
Despite evidence of student’s thirst for feedback, students do not necessarily read it (Price, Handley, Miller
& O’Donovan2010) and may not understand it or use it (Gibbs & Simpson 2004)
•
It seems that students do not understand feedback beyond a grade?
 A major NSS issue? Why?
The implications - Anxiety/psychological safety
•
Anxiety and psychological safety are both related to assessment
•
Anxiety associated with how students perceive their environment
 Anxious and psychologically unsafe students more likely to see the environment in a negative way
 NSS implications?
•
The personal impact on students in their daily lives
 It has been acknowledged that psychological distress in university students is increasing both in
severity and incidence (Association of University and College Counselling, 2004; Stallman 2010)
 We assume that students come her with the skills to learn and engage with others in a fearless manner. Most do not
The implications – Group funtioning and employability
•
It appears that although students hold the necessary qualifications, they do in the main lack the ‘soft skills’
required by employers (Archer & Davison 2008).
•
The two most sought after skills by employers which are utilised in group assessment
1. Communication
2. Team working
• It is well know that students dislike group assessment (UHSU local survey)
 Should we educate our student's with regard to what they need rather than what they think they
need ?
References
•
Association of University and College Counselling (2004). Annual survey of counselling in further and higher education
2002/03. Rugby: British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy
•
Fletcher, B (C). (1999). The Cultural Audit
•
Gibbs, et al. (2004). Developing Students Transferable Skills. (Oxford, The Oxford Center for Staff Development
•
Gibbs, G. & Simpson, C. (2004). Conditions under which assessment supports student’s learning. Learning and Teaching in
Higher Education, 1, no. 1, 1-31
•
Stallman, H.M. (2010). Psychological distress in university students: A comparison with general population data. Australian
Psychologist, 45, 249-257
•
Price, M.K., Handley, K. & O’Donovan (2010). Feedback: All that effort but what is the effect? Paper presented at the 4th
EARLI/Northumbria Conference: Challenging Assessment, August 8th, Berlin, Germany
•
Stead, R. W. (2007). If to Love is Human and to be Human is to Love, Where are all the Humans? Human Mind – Human
Kind Conference, Aarhus Demark.