Feedback on feedback feedback!

Debbie Bevitt & Vanessa Armstrong

School of Biomedical Sciences

• Feedback and what the students thought of it

• Online EMIs & Extended essay

Stage 1 students in School of Biomedical Sciences (~360 students) are assessed by EMI questions

Historically students got instant feedback at the end of online EMI tests (using in-house system)

Under exam conditions – not allowed to take questions and answers away

No past-papers

Evaluating student response to EMI feedback

On moving tests to Blackboard we gave feedback at the end of semester, not end of test

Students also received an email showing them how they are doing on each question “theme” compared to rest of class

Your Score1st Quartile

Average Score 3rd Quartile

Maximum Score

34 32 37.9 45 60

Theme Your ScoreFor this theme 1st Quartile Average Score 3rd Quartile Maximum

Scoreamino acids 3 1 2.88 4 5ATP 2 2 2.677 3 5B-DNA 4 3 3.809 5 5Chromatographic techniques 2 3 3.431 4 5enzyme properties 4 4 4.22 5 5lac operon in E. coli 3 2 3.472 5 5Molarities and dilutions 5 1 2.413 4 5proteins in disease 2 2 2.871 4 5ribosomes and translation 2 2 3.07 5 5RNA polymerase 1 2 3.094 4 5Structure of sugars 3 2 2.584 3 5tRNA 3 2 3.416 5 5

Mail Merge to b10----------Dear -----------BGM1002/BGM1001 17 November 2011Your score for this examination was 34 out of possible marks of 60.The overall scores for the cohort were:Your scores separated into themes were as follows:

1 2 3 4 5

13%

40%

8%

13%

26%

1. Strongly Agree

2. Agree

3. Neutral

4. Disagree

5. Strongly Disagree

The email feedback on IC-EMIs for Genetics & Cell Biology was useful

The IC-EMI feedback session at the end of semester 1 was useful

1 2 3 4 5

15%18%

35%

18%

14%

1. Strongly Agree

2. Agree

3. Neutral

4. Disagree

5. Strongly Disagree

I would prefer to have the online feedback at the end of the test

1 2 3 4 5

20% 19%

31%

15%15%

1. Strongly Agree

2. Agree

3. Neutral

4. Disagree

5. Strongly Disagree

Looking at the feedback from EMI's was not very useful. Not being able to take notes or information away from the session really didn't help at all.

EMI feedback session was a waste of time. memorizing areas you need to work on is not productive.

Evaluating student response to extended essay feedback

• 1st essay experience at university

• 1000 words

• 2 introductory seminars given on essay structure, referencing and plagiarism

• 17 markers – academic and post-doctoral staff

Feedback (to be completed by marker)

A B C D E F

Structure

Quality of Examples

Clarity

References

Presentation

Evidence of research beyond study guide refs

Comments (to be completed by marker)

Online survey conducted using Survey Monkey

(http://www.surveymonkey.com/)

106 responses

Number of students

30 39 30 6

% r

espo

nden

ts

Number of respondents

A B C D0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

agreed that comments were constructivefeedback did NOT help me understand how I could improvethere was NOT a clear link between written comments and awarded mark

Grade

Good points about feedback included; • constructive • concise • detailed • specific

Suggestions for improvement:• more detail needed or expansion of specific areas

for improvement• clearer link between mark and comments• more detailed annotation od script• verbal/ one-to-one feedback

Summary

Students valued:

• “how you are doing” stats feedback for online EMIs • open access to question-by-question feedback

• clear correlation between comments and mark

• clear guidance on how to improve

Any Questions?