The Role of Feedback in Promoting Learning Activities

Discuss About The Using Student To Improve Learning Materials.

Feedback is very important in promoting learning activities to students. It helps them reflect on the quality of work that they have done and have solutions on how to improve their performance. (Franks and Maslovat, 2015).

This investigation was conducted in order to find out the uses, features of feedback, the impact on students and the best type of feedback used at QUTIC.

A questionnaire was given to a group of twenty students. The questionnaire is meant to help QUTIC to improve ways of giving feedback that is comfortable with all the students.  Some of the questions in the questionnaire included; if feedback is essential for learning, if negative feedback demotivates students, the best method of feedback at QUTIC and why students find it hard to approach tutors for feedback.

It was found out that seven students strongly agreed that feedback is essential for effective learning while thirteen students agreed to the question. Majority of the students agreed. Feedback is very important to improve learning among students as emphasized by (Nathenson & Henderson, 2018). It helps them know their weaknesses in certain areas and hence improve on them. As much as feedback is very essential in learning, some students do not strongly agree because they may feel like it’s a one way dialogue. Teachers should also allow students to give them feedback on how they have taught the modules so as to make learning more effective. All students agree that feedback is essential for effective learning because in one way or another, it has impacted positively in their education.

13 students agreed that negative feedback demotivates them while 7 disagreed. When a teacher gives a student negative feedback, it destroys the students confidence in doing something in class because they like they are not good at it. The student may also lose interest and start hating the subject and finally lose motivation and interest in knowing more about the modules. Negative feedback as described by (Zingoni & Byron,2017) may also lead to the student feeling ashamed in class and may take it as a punishment which is not the main aim of a feedback. Even though some feel like it demotivates them, others feel like sometimes negative feedback works best for them this is because it helps them to invest more time on knowing the concept so as to improve but only if it is given in the right away. It is advisable that when teachers give negative feedback, they should accompany it with a good advice to motivate students.

Investigating the Uses and Features of Feedback at QUTIC

5 students prefer grades are the means of feedback at QUTIC, 6 prefer written comment from the tutor, 7 verbal feedback from the tutor and 2 prefer self-assessment and no student is affected by comments from their peers. Grades are a way of assessing students through giving those tests or assignments and marking them hence giving them grades. Students should be able to understand the different scores and grades, they should also be set for pass marks for different tests. This motivates students to work hard so as to achieve their goals. Written comments from the tutors is also a way of giving feedback whereby the tutor writes comments about the work that was given and this helps highlight the specific mistakes that the student has done. Verbal feedback from the tutor is preferred at QUTIC since most students like to have a dialogue on the assessments they have done rather than written feedback.  According to (Ngoon et al., 2018), it enhances the student’s ability to understand the concept more. Comments from peers should not be a hindrance to student’s performance since they do not add value to them. Teachers should be able to understand what means of feedback works well with their students and explore them more.

2 students think one on one feedback is the best since they get to interact with the tutors and understand the concept more. 6 feel online feedbacks is the best since they get to read for themselves and if they are negative they cannot feel embarrassed. 8 feel written feedbacks is the best in the school since the mistakes in their assessments are highlighted and the comments help them to correct the mistakes. 4 find verbal feedback by tutors the best since verbally, all the information they require to improve in their studies can be said. Feedback in the school is a one way dialogue and most students are afraid of approaching tutors to help them that is why they find written feedback the best of all. Even though written feedback works well, the teachers should be able to make the students comfortable to face them and sit with them to provide feedback in a nice way.

5 students think it is because of language barrier, 4 think it is due to the fear of disturbing the tutor, 7 think it is due to criticism by the tutor and 4 think that feedback from them is not important. Most teachers demoralize students by giving them feedback in the wrong way. Students are supposed to be advised and not criticized in order to take feedback positively. Criticism from teachers creates fear among students and hence affects their performance in class, teachers should also come up with ways to allow students to give them feedback on how a certain module was taught so as to help them know which topics are becoming hard for students to understand. This will improve the performance of the school in general.

Impact of Feedback on Students and Best Type of Feedback

3 students think feedback results to frustration maybe because of how the teachers give them feedback can be demoralizing and embarrassing which kills the student’s confidence in class or some of them do not just like being corrected.9 think that feedback should bring betterment in their studies which is the main objective of feedback in school. It should help students improve in their studies, reflect on their weakness and act upon them. 8 think negative feedback brings demotivation. Feedback should be used to motivate students and how you give feedback matters a lot to the students. (Pekrun et al., 2014).

Most of the students agree that tutor consultation is the best feedback at QUTIC.  Tutor consultation as emphasized by (Griffin et al., 2016), will enable them to have a one on one discussion with the tutors and be taken step by step on understanding the concept. Tutors can also correct them where they have done mistakes in the assessment which they will correct and not repeat the same. Students also feel confident when they are consulting the tutors alone than in front of the classroom. They are free to ask any questions on the topics that they did not understand in class.

Most of the students agreed to the delivery method of feedback being the important feature for feedback. Feedback can be positive or negative and all of them are important to students. Feedback only has impact on a person by the way it is delivered. If delivered positively, it brings about understand, motivation and improvement but if it is delivered negatively, it impacts on people badly and can cause frustration and low self-esteem. Feedback should be delivered in the best way possible so as to bring about positive results. (Shu & Lam, (2016).

Modes of giving feedback at QUTIC are all good since they motivate students but the school should understand what method of feedback works best for every student. After that, they shpuld adopt that so as to improve the results of the school in overall. Teachers instead of giving feedback only after assessments, they should also give feedback before for the students to keep in mind and avoid making mistakes.

Further research on the impact of feedback should be done. The benefits of negative feedback should be researched to help students understand that it can cause improvement rather than demotivation.  Schools should be advised on the best method of giving feedback to students to make learning efficient. The study should be conducted in different schools to get different opinions about features of feedback.

Conclusion

Feedback is meant to impact positively on individuals as demonstrated by (Shu & Lam, (2016). Feedback in schools motivates students to do better each and every time. it is the role of teachers to give feedback is positive to the students for them to work well. Feedback to be a continuous learning and conversation thus should be a two way dialogue in that students are also allowed to give teachers feedback. Schools should consider feedback as an effective learning tool.

References

Franks, I. M., & Maslovat, D. (2015). The importance of feedback to performance. In Essentials of performance analysis in sport (pp. 11-17). Routledge.

Nathenson, M. B., & Henderson, E. S. (2018). Using student feedback to improve learning materials. Routledge.

Zingoni, M., & Byron, K. (2017). How beliefs about the self influence perceptions of negative feedback and subsequent effort and learning. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 139, 50-62.

Brookhart, S. M. (2017). How to give effective feedback to your students. ASCD.

Ngoon, T. J., Fraser, C. A., Weingarten, A. S., Dontcheva, M., & Klemmer, S. (2018). Interactive Guidance Techniques for Improving Creative Feedback.

Griffin, T., Armitage, L., Parker, P., & Hugman, S. (2016). Assessment dialogues: perceptions of feedback and feed-forward. In Assessment for Learning Within and Beyond the Classroom (pp. 225-237). Springer, Singapore.

Johnson, M. (2016). Context and Implications Document for: Feedback effectiveness in professional learning contexts. Review of Education, 4(2), 230-232.

Pekrun, R., Cusack, A., Murayama, K., Elliot, A. J., & Thomas, K. (2014). The power of anticipated feedback: Effects on students’ achievement goals and achievement emotions. Learning and Instruction, 29, 115-124.

Shu, T. M., & Lam, S. F. (2016). Is it always good to provide positive feedback to students? The moderating effects of culture and regulatory focus. Learning and Individual Differences, 49, 171-177.

Conrad, S. S., & Dabbagh, N. (2018). Student and Instructors Perceptions of Helpful Feedback for Asynchronous Online Learning: What Students Want From Instructor Feedback. In Innovative Applications of Online Pedagogy and Course Design (pp. 177-201). IGI Global.