Learnings from LTAG - Dr Andrea Dillon
A Digital Solution to Enhance Student Feedback Following Utilisation of MyUni Quiz Assessments
Assessment for learning requires feedback on learning outcomes/competencies to assist students to identify strengths or weaknesses and refine learning. We have identified an inability for MyUni to provide contextualised, useful and individualised feedback to medical students on their written digital assessments. We are seeking support to design and implement an appropriate digital solution which automates the provision of individualised feedback to students that is aligned to learning outcomes. This solution would enable us to efficiently extract data from assessments to generate feedback for students to enhance learning without compromising assessment integrity.
How has your activity impacted your teaching, student learning or the practice of your colleagues?
The grant was utilised to create a tool that correlates students results for a MyUni quiz question against a learning outcome. This information (as well as the mean cohort score for each question) was then emailed to students, enabling us to provide specific feedback whilst maintaining assessment integrity (students are not provided with the quiz questions). This information enables students to identify areas where they performed well in and areas of learning they need to remediate. They are also able to see areas of learning where their knowledge is below that of the cohort. This tool has now been implemented across three years of the medical program, assisting staff to provide constructive and timely feedback to the cohort.
One thing that surprised me in undertaking this activity was…….
Our students are always keen to receive feedback on their learning and normally the biggest constraint is resourcing. It has been rewarding to work in partnership with the students to create a tool that enhances their learning. The students have also enjoyed the opportunity to provide input into the feedback tool.
What is your key learning from this activity?
Creation of this tool has highlighted to us the importance of constructive alignment and blueprinting when creating high quality assessments. This in turn has enhanced our ability to provide timely and useful feedback to the students that enables them to focus their remedial learning on specific areas of the curriculum.
How could colleagues use your learnings in their practice?
The feedback tool we have created can be implemented by anyone in the University who constructively aligns learning outcomes with individual assessment questions and utilises an assessment platform that generates csv file data (eg MyUni Classic Quizzes). This would enable academics to provide specific feedback to students while maintaining assessment integrity. The process of downloading the data from MyUni and emailing the students with the results takes approximately 30 minutes for an entire cohort – given the low time input, this means students can receive timely feedback.
How do you plan to build upon this experience?
At a recent conference, we met a statistician from overseas who implements a similar feedback tool. They have taken the tool a step further and are also able to provide feedback on domains of learning as well as the specific learning outcome. We would now like to work with this team to further enhance the feedback provided to our students.
How can people learn more about your project?
We recently spoke about the feedback tool at a new FHMS initiative called “assessment club”. Slides on this presentation are available through the associated MyUni course: https://myuni.adelaide.edu.au/enroll/9GBPFF
Otherwise people can reach out directly to Dr Andrea Dillon.