All Ireland Society for Higher Education
| Name: | Francesca Lorenzi |
|---|---|
| Email: | francesca.lorenzi@dcu.ie |
| Institution: | Oscail/ DCU |
While virtual environments are increasing the opportunities for interaction, assessment feedback still remains an important vehicle for communication between tutors and students in a distance education context. Furthermore, as assessment often drives learning, exchanges on assessment are crucial to furthering learning.
Opportunities to help learners progress are often missed when assessment is perceived by tutors and students as disconnected from learning. If however assessment is viewed as part of the learning process, this should encourage the provision of feedback that not only addresses performance in retrospective terms but builds on it to address future learning. Within this perspective feedback comments tap onto the students' potential for development and help to establish an ongoing pedagogical dialogue between tutors and students.
This paper will report on action research carried out by Oscail, the Irish National Distance Education Centre, to establish ways to improve assessment feedback and maximise the opportunities for helping students to improve their learning.
The introduction of a structured feedback form in 2005 has only partially achieved the goal of helping learning. The initial evaluation has shown that the approach which tutors the form as an opportunity for improved communication influences its effectiveness. This work in progress analysis appears to indicate that tutors and students need to share meaning on assessment and establish a mutual relationship to ensure that feedback influences learning. From the tutors part this means ensuring that the advice provided promotes knowledge building and from the learner's part this means taking the advice on board and translating it into improved understanding.