Conference and seminar sessions in Marking and feedback
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Assessment and Feedback: Using Marking Rubrics and QuickMarks
Presentation at Northern Economics Network seminars,Providing Individual Feedback in Paper Exams with Large Groups using Excel Conditional Formulae
Presentation at Northern Economics Network seminars,Gradescope For Programming And Maths Assignments
Presentation at Northern Economics Network seminars,Gradescope: Improving marking and feedback in economics courses
Presentation at DEE 2023,The death of exams? Grade inflation and student satisfaction when coursework replaces exams
Presentation at DEE 2023,Negative marking, guessing and academic performance
Presentation at DEE 2021,Public feedback for collective learning
Presentation at DEE 2021,Specialisation or total excellence: a study of of the UK and Continental Europe marking scales
Presentation at DEE 2021,Does feedback improve students’ performance? Evidence from a final year compulsory module
Presentation at DEE 2019,This paper evaluates the impact of written feedback on the academic performance of final year economics students. The intervention takes place in a compulsory final year module, Advanced Macroeconomics. Feedback is provided on small essays (500w) using a template that provides forward guidance and identifies the weaknesses and strengths of the work to the student. The activity is designed according to the ‘seven principles of good feedback’ popularised by Nicol and Macfarlane‐Dick (2006). Data on the feedback activities has been collected over 5 years, providing us a sample of over 700 observations. We match participation data with individual data on students’ exam performance; the week in which the essay was written; the student’s programme; individual characteristics including, past performance, gender, disabilities, or participation in job placements. This allows us to evaluate the impact of the feedback, and whether timing or programme of study have a differential effect. To investigate these issues, we use a difference-in-difference approach, where participants in the feedback activity are the treatment group and the control group are students of similar characteristics that did not participate in the feedback activity. Our preliminary results suggest that feedback has a non-linear impact, with those at the top of the grade distribution benefiting the most from feedback. We also observe some gender differences that we continue to investigate. This paper extends the existing feedback literature that has focused on the impact of interventions on student satisfaction and on students-staff understanding of feedback.
Online assessment, adaptive feedback and the importance of visual learning for students
Presentation at DEE 2017,The objective of the paper is to point out the importance of two recent developments in online practice and assessment that could allow instructors to move away from standard and repetitive MCQs, significantly improving the learning experience of students. The first development is the possibility to create questions that adapt to students' performance; for example, questions that, if answered incorrectly, provide additional questions and hints to induce the student to reach the correct answer using alternative paths. The second innovation is the use of interactive visual material, such as clickable images and interactive diagrams. To make our point, we introduce the advantages, with a few caveats, of the use of the platform MapleTA.
Can multiple small feedback activities improve students’ performance and opinion of feedback? Evidence from compulsory final year module
Presentation at DEE 2017,This paper studies the performance of final year Economics students and their opinion on feedback after introducing three small activities (up-to 500 words) for which students can receive written feedback at different points of the semester. These activities involve writing up-to two current affairs essays using course materials, plus one essay answering the questions for one of the seminars. The availability of several feedback points allows to offer a system of feedback that resembles “continuous evaluation” available at lower levels of education. While the word limit of 500 words, and the deadline, at any point of the semester but never all at once, are designed to ensure a manageable work load for staff. After completing the activity, students receive a form designed according to the so-called “seven principles of good feedback” popularised in the educational literature by REF. Our findings show that our intervention increases students’ opinion of feedback markedly, according to the module evaluation survey students’ satisfaction doubles. Further, we also find that our intervention enhances students’ performance. The intervention takes place into a compulsory final year module, Advanced Macroeconomics, which makes our findings relevant for inference for the NSS.
