Student authored – T&L Exchange

Using Psychological Techniques to get the most out of your Feedback

28 April 20204 May 2020 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Zainab Abdulsattar (student – Research Assistant), Tamara Wiehe (staff – PWP Clinical Educator) and Dr Allán Laville, a.laville@reading.ac.uk, (Dean for D&I and Lecturer in Clinical Psychology). School of Psychology and CLS.

Overview

To help Part 3 MSci Applied Psychology students address the emotional aspect of engaging with and interpreting assessment feedback, we have created a Blackboard feedback tool, which draws on self-help strategies used in NHS Mental Health services. This was a TLDF funded project by CQSD and we reflect upon the usefulness of the tool in terms of helping students manage their assessment feedback in a more positive and productive way for both now and the future.

Objectives

To explore the barriers to interpreting and implementing feedback through the creation of a feedback-focused tool for Blackboard
To transfer aspects of NHS self-help strategies to the tool
To acknowledge the emotional aspect of addressing assessment feedback in Higher Education
To support students to engage effectively with feedback

Context

Assessment and feedback are continually rated as the lowest item on student surveys despite efforts from staff to address this. Whilst staff can certainly continue to improve on their practices surrounding providing feedback, our efforts turned to how we could improve student engagement in this area. Upon investigation of existing feedback-focused tools, it has become apparent that many do not acknowledge the emotional aspect of addressing assessment feedback. For example, the ‘Development Engagement with Feedback Toolkit (DEFT)’ has useful components like a glossary helping students with academic jargon, but it does not provide resources to help with feedback related stress. The aim was to address the emotional aspect of interpreting feedback in the form of a self-help tool.

Implementation

Zainab Abdulsattar’s experience:

Firstly, we carried out a literature review on feedback in higher education and the use of self-help resources like cognitive restructuring within the NHS used to treat anxiety and depression. These ideas were taken to the student focus group: to gather students’ thoughts and opinions on what type of resource they would like to help them understand and use their feedback.

Considering ideas from the literature review and the focus group, we established the various components of the tool: purpose of feedback video, problem solving and cognitive restructuring techniques, reflective log and where to go for further support page. Then, we started the creation of our prototype Blackboard tool. At tool creation stage, we worked collaboratively with the TEL team (Maria, Matt and Jacqueline) to help format and launch the tool. Upon launch, students were given access to the tool via Blackboard and a survey to complete once they had explored and used the tool.

Impact

Our prototype Blackboard tool met the main objective of the project, to address the emotional aspect of the interpreting assessment feedback. The cognitive restructuring resource aimed to identify, challenge and re-balance students negative or stressful thoughts related to receiving feedback. Some students reported in the tool survey that they found this technique useful.

As well as this, the examples seemed to help students link their past experiences of not getting a good grade. Students also appreciated the interactive features like the video of the lecturer [addressing the fact that feedback is not a personal attack] and were looking forward to the tool being fully implemented during their next academic year. Overall, the student survey was positive with the addition of some suggestions such as making the tool smart phone friendly and altering the structure of the main page for ease of use.

Reflections

Zainab Abdulsattar’s reflections:

The success of the tool lied in the focus group and literature review contributions because the students’ focus group tool ideas helped to further contribute to the evidence-based self-help ideas gathered from the latter. Importantly, the hope is that the tool can act as an academic aid promoting and improving students’ independence in self-managing feedback in a more positive and productive way. Hopefully this will alleviate feedback-related stress for both now and the future in academic and work settings.

Follow up

In the future, we hope to expand the prototype tool into a more established feedback-focused tool. To make the tool even more use-friendly, we could consider improving the initial main contents page. For example, presenting the options like ‘I want to work on improving x’ then lead on to the appropriate self-help resource instead of simply starting with the resource options [e.g. problem solving, reflective log].

Developing and embedding electronic assessment overviews

31 March 202020 May 2020 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Dr Allán Laville, a.laville@reading.ac.uk , Chloe Chessell and Tamara Wiehe

Overview

To develop our assessment practices, we created electronic assessment overviews for all assessments in Part 3 MSci Applied Psychology (Clinical) programme. Here we reflect on the benefits of completing this project via a student-staff partnership as well as the realised benefits for students.

Objectives

To create electronic assessment overviews for all 8 assessments in Part 3 MSci Applied Psychology (Clinical).
To create the overviews via a student-staff partnership with Chloe Chessell. Chloe is a current PhD student and previous MSci student.

Context

The activity was undertaken due to the complexity of the Part 3 assessments. In particular, the clinical competency assessments have many components and so, only providing an in-class overview has some limitations. The aim was for students to be able to review assessment overviews at any time via Blackboard.

Implementation

Allán Laville (Dean for Diversity and Inclusion) and Tamara Wiehe (MSci Clinical Educator) designed the electronic assessment overview concept and then approached Chloe Chessell to see whether she wanted to take part in the development of these overviews. It was important to include Chloe here as she has lived experience of completing the programme and therefore, can offer unique insight.

Chloe Chessell’s experience

The first stage in assisting with the development of electronic assessment resources for MSci Applied Psychology (Clinical) students involved reflecting upon the information my cohort was provided with during our Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) training year. Specifically, this involved reflecting upon information about the assessments that I found particularly helpful; identifying any further information which would have benefitted my understanding of the assessments; and suggesting ways to best utilise screencasts to supplement written information about the assessments. After providing this information, I had the opportunity to review and provide feedback on the screencasts which had been developed by the Clinical Educators.

Impact

Chloe shares her view of the impact of completing this activity:

The screencasts that have been developed added to the information that I had as a student, as this format allows students to review assessment information in their own time, and at their own pace. Screencasts can also be revisited, which may help students to ensure they have met the marking criteria for a specific assessment. Furthermore, embedded videos/links to information to support the development of key writing skills (e.g. critical analysis skills) within these screencasts expand upon the information my cohort received, and will help students to develop these skills at the onset of their PWP training year.

Reflections

Staff reflections: The student-staff partnership was key to the success of the project as we needed to ensure that the student voice was at the forefront. The electronic assessment overviews have been well received by students and we are pleased with the results. Based on this positive experience, we now have a further 4 student-staff projects that are currently being completed and we hope to publish on the T&L Exchange in due course.

Chloe Chessell’s reflections:

I believe that utilising student-staff partnerships to aid course development is crucial, as it enables staff to learn from student’s experiences of receiving course information and their views for course development, whilst ensuring overall course requirements are met. Such partnerships also enable students to engage in their course at a higher level, allowing them to have a role in shaping the course around their needs and experiences.

Follow up

In future, we will aim to include interactive tasks within the screencasts, so students can engage in deep level learning (Marton, 1975). An example could be for students to complete a mind map based on the material that they have reviewed in the electronic assessment overview.

Working in partnership with our lecturers to redesign language marking schemes

20 November 201917 January 2020 By edwardwhite Comment Closed

Sian Wells (BA French and Italian) and Sophia Acton (BA Italian and Spanish)

During the Spring and Summer term of 2019, we participated in a project within the Department of Modern Languages and European Studies (MLES, now Department of Languages and Cultures) with the aim of redesigning the marking schemes used for oral and written pieces of work. This was a follow-up to a 2016 project by Rita Balestrini, which aimed to improve the process of assessing foreign language skills within the department. As we had both taken part in the focus groups in our second year, we were asked to take part in the follow-up project and work alongside Rita Balestrini and her colleague Elisabeth Koenigshofer to improve the rubrics currently used in the department.

This project was influenced by Complexity Theory in the context of Second Language Development. Before the project started, we as students were not aware of research into Second Language Learning and research into the effectiveness of marking schemes. At the beginning of the project we were provided with reading material to gain a better understanding of the science and theory behind the project. We did find the reading quite difficult initially but it became clearer how second language development is a complex process which involves a number of interacting factors. Diane Larson-Freeman, a leading researcher into Complexity Theory defines the process as ‘a complex nonlinear system’ (1997), by which language learners do not simply master one item and then move on to another. Instead, they acquire the second language at different rates: some grammatical structures will be consolidated early on whilst others will take longer to master, and “mistakes” will still occur at all levels (Larson-Freeman, 1997). Thus, feedback becomes an integral part of the learning process. Effective feedback will eventually help learners to reach a high level of proficiency. There are many aspects involved in the process of Second Language Learning, for example the source language and the target language with their respective components (eg. phonology, morphology, lexicon, syntax, semantics and pragmatics); the amount and type of input, interaction, and of feedback (Larson-Freeman, 1997). This complexity raises the question of how to effectively evaluate Second Language Learning. Some research has found that rubrics are not very useful for measuring and evaluating objectively complex processes like Second Language Development. They do not acknowledge setbacks which are part of the learning process and cannot account for the effort put in by the student. This is a problem which also emerged from the analysis of focus group discussions.

Working with our lecturers was a very positive experience because we were able to contribute ideas to the project. We came up with examples of new descriptors and we hope our collaborative effort has produced new rubrics which will support better the process of language learning in the DLC. Being students, it meant that we could provide a unique insight because we have used the marking schemes throughout our four years of studying in the department. We could use our own experience to improve the experience of future students. We also realised how difficult it is to effectively evaluate the learning of a language from the perspective of a lecturer, as there are so many components that go into one single piece of work and also because language tasks can vary enormously, from writing a recipe to writing an essay. The difficulties of creating a marking scheme, which adequately evaluate the level of a student in all pieces of work, became apparent to us. One of the hardest parts of the project was coming up with new descriptors for each grade boundary. Based on the analysis of focus group discussions and on research on the use of rubrics, descriptors should avoid evaluative language and be encouraging for students, both, for those getting lower grades and needing to improve, and those achieving higher grades and wanting to continue to improve. Firstly, Sophia and I were given time to come up with our own new descriptors which we then shared with Rita and Elisabeth. Our lecturers used our ideas to come up with a proposal of what a new marking scheme would look like and which criteria and descriptors could be used. This was a really good way of working because it allowed equal input from both, us students, and lecturers, and meant that we could fully contribute to the project and have our ideas incorporated into the final marking and feedback schemes.

Overall, it was a really positive experience as we valued the expertise of our lecturers regarding the theory surrounding the project and could share the difficulties in evaluating pieces of work. Our lecturers in turn valued our experience as second-language learners who had used the rubrics as students and could provide ideas of how to improve them. We felt that our ideas and input were really appreciated and we hope to have helped create more effective marking schemes which will improve how students are assessed in the department.

Links to related posts

The report about the the follow-up project can be found here:

‘How did I do?’ Finding new ways to describe the standards of foreign language performance. A follow-up project on the redesign of two marking schemes (DLC)

The first stages of this ongoing project to enhance the process of assessing writing and speaking skills in the Department of Languages and Cultures (DLC, previously MLES) are described in the following blog entries:

Involving students in the appraisal of rubrics for performance-based assessment in Foreign Languages

Sharing the ‘secrets’: Involving students in the use (and design?) of marking schemes