Project Investigator(s): Andrew Owen, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
Project Description
This project will develop and test strategies that promote active learning during student engagement with formative assessment feedback. I will draw on a review of existing literature and techniques to develop 2-3 specific feedback engagement techniques that will then be experimentally evaluated.
Research Questions
Are there feedback techniques that can encourage moments of active learning where students develop an understanding of strengths and weakness of their work and, crucially, further develop their skills and knowledge by understanding how their ‘answers’ could be improved?
Impact on teaching and learning at UBC
The most immediate impact of this project will be an improvement in student engagement with feedback in my introductory statistics course (POLI 380). I expect the project may also result in developments in how I provide feedback so that I might enhance the impact of feedback on learning outcomes.
A central motivation throughout the project, however, is ensuring that insights, techniques, and learning objects I develop will be of interest to other instructors wishing to fostering student engagement with feedback. Most directly, these findings will be useful for instructors who employ ‘answer sheets’ as a means to provide feedback in the context of numerous formative assessments. I further expect that results from the project will encourage instructors to adopt strategies that encourage feedback engagement in other sorts of assessments (such as essays and research papers).