Abstract:

Communicating feedback effectively and in a timely manner to learners is a constant matter of importance for practitioners in Higher Education. Immediate feedback is the ideal model, but may not be practical for numerous reasons. The objective of this study is to explore the experiences and attitudes of students who received immediate feedback for their assessed work. Immediate feedback was provided using a custom built software application, called AgileMarkr. AgileMarkr was deployed during practical skills based assessments in a practical module. Surveys were conducted with a cohort of first year undergraduate students from one Department studying a module on a Programme in one Higher Education Institution.

This is a follow up study, and the findings show that students really valued access to immediate feedback which the software provided. The findings also showed that students would appreciate more opportunities to receive this type of feedback throughout all areas in their course of study. Through this study and its predecessor study a process have been developed which facilitates students receiving timely and concise feedback.

AgileMarkr has the capability to produce feedback for each individual task in a practical activity. The feedback provides hints to enable students to check their work and fix any mistakes. It also provides them with an immediate mark. Once they fix mistakes they can resubmit their work and see that their mark has improved. Research studies show that feedback is an integral part of the learning process. Providing students with an immediate mark and enabling them to improve that mark before they submit their final piece of work motivates them to continue working through the activity. Students are learning through each iteration of the process, which is reinforcing their leaning and understanding of the specific topic(s).

Keywords:

Technology, Education, Custom Software, Feedback, Self-Monitoring.