Abstract:

The use of ICT has been promoted by universities in the provision of timely, specific, flexible, and interactive feedback to support students’ academic learning. There has been a proliferation of studies on the effects of various ICT-enabled (i.e., technology-enhanced) feedback strategies in enhancing the quantity and quality of feedback provision. However, existing studies have paid little attention to the role of the university environment as a key factor in influencing how students experience ICT-enabled feedback at their university. Lacking an understanding of the way in which the university environment impacts ICT-enabled feedback provision would make universities ill-informed of how university support measures can be formulated to support students’ engagement with ICT-enabled feedback.

In this study, we developed and validated a short questionnaire to investigate the relationships between five dimensions of student ICT-enabled feedback experience. The dimensions included:
(1) perceived university environment (whether university policy and teacher practice promote ICT-enabled feedback provision),
(2) perceived teacher and student competence of giving/using ICT-enabled feedback,
(3) perceived utility of feedback (benefits of feedback generally, e.g., clarifying criteria and standards),
(4) experience of ICT-enabled feedback (experience of giving, receiving, and using ICT-enabled feedback), and
(5) perceived utility of ICT-enabled feedback (the benefits of ICT-enabled feedback, e.g., promoting self-reflection).

A total of 359 students from a university in Hong Kong took part in the survey. Statistical analyses including descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM) were performed. The EFA results supported our conceptualisation of the five dimensions.

The CFA and SEM analysis results showed that:
(1) students’ perception of the university environment predicted all the other four dimensions directly;
(2) students’ perception of the university environment also predicted their perception of the utility of ICT-enabled feedback through perceived teacher and student competence of using ICT-enabled feedback, perceived utility of feedback in general, and experience of ICT-enabled feedback.

The results indicate that simply by increasing students’ awareness of the usefulness of feedback is necessary but not sufficient for increasing students’ uptake of ICT-enabled feedback. Providing institution-level support through appropriate university policy as well as technical and pedagogical support in order to increase teachers’ and students’ technical competence and engagement in ICT-enabled feedback experience is the key to making students realise the helpfulness of of ICT-enabled feedback to support their learning. Further research may investigate the impacts of perceived university environment on students’ assessment literacy, feedback literacy, as well as their attitudes, intentions and actions to engage with ICT-enabled feedback.

Keywords:

University environment, ICT competence, feedback, ICT-enabled feedback, technology-enhanced learning, technology-enhanced feedback.