Effective teacher-education practice: The impact of written assessment "feedback" for distance learners

Project Description

Black and Wiliam (1998) define assessment as “all those activities undertaken by teachers, and by their students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged” (p. 2). Feedback to students, whether oral or written, is a crucial aspect of assessment, and must be considered within a broader teaching framework (Gipps, 1994). Assessment feedback must give students not only an indication of their achievements, but also, crucially, information and guidance from which they can learn (Brown, 1999; Ding, 1998; Higgins, 2004). Thus feedback also has an important motivational function (Hyland, 2000).

This project contributes to research on the role of written assessment feedback. It identifies barriers that may undermine the potential effectiveness of written feedback, and reports on what kind of written feedback is likely to be most effective in engaging students with learning.

Project Outputs

2005

Presentations, conferences and workshops

Murphy, T., McClew, J., & Margrain, V. (2005). Students' perceptions of effective written feedback in distance teacher education. Paper presented at the annual conference of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE), Dunedin, 6-9 December 2005.