Feedback on exams - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Feedback on exams

Vicki Bruce

On behalf of

School of PsychologySlide2

Stages 2 and 3 ‘exam feedback’

For every module, students get ‘how did I do’ distributions where they can see their marks set in context of class distribution

Stage 2 – MCQ and essay marks separately given

Both stages have workshops providing generic feedback and advice on exams.Slide3

Workshops

Generic descriptions of positive and negative exam answers from module leaders

General advice about how to do well in writing exam answers

But the approach not wholly successfulSlide4

Feedback on our workshops (VT)

If they are given general positive and negative feedback, the students will believe that the positive feedback applies to their exam essays. This is because they thought that they did what the question asked, they wanted to get a good mark and did their best.

If

they believe the positive feedback applies to their work but they get a low mark, they think that the feedback is unhelpful and they don’t know how to apply it to improve the next time.

If

they can’t identify with the negative feedback about the actual content of their essays then they tend to blame things such as poor handwriting or panicking, things that don’t reflect lack of effort or ability.

Exam

feedback will only help students to improve if they get it with their script so that they can see for themselves that the negative feedback applies to them.

Feedback on scripts should be brief and can still be ‘general’ e.g. fails to answer the question, there are errors in the argument, no reading outside of the lecture material, confusing and poorly structured – therefore it won’t be massively time consuming. Slide5

First year exam feedback

PSY1007 – History of Psychology

The only Stage 1 exam using essay answers

First we have a ‘seen’ practice essay from one that appeared on last year’s paper, written in exam conditions, as a mid-term assignment – 5% module mark

This is annotated and returned to students along with ‘generic’ feedback:Slide6

Choose

two

scientists who made important contributions before 1880 to the development of psychology as an independent discipline. Outline the contributions they each made and explain why you have chosen these two people to discuss.

Good answers

Made good choices of scientists whose contributions are clearly important

Justified choice of, e.g. philosopher as ‘scientist’ if that seemed to be necessary

Said something about the last part of the question – i.e

. justified the choices in terms of their impact on development of the discipline

Were accurate about the dates of key milestones (e.g. the founding of Wundt’s lab)

Said something about what it means to have psychology as an ‘independent discipline’.

Showed some evidence of general reading/research

Weaker answers

Chose some number other than two

Chose scientists whose contributions were made later than 1880

Chose contributions made too early to be seen to have contributed directly to psychology

Were poorly organised

Knew very little about one or both of the chosen two

Did not justify the choices madeSlide7

Exam itself

Essay answers are marked and

briefly

annotated (e.g. x in margin where something clearly wrong, a tick where a good point is made, a note at end such as ‘did not answer question’)

In class, in semester 1 of Stage 2, in the run up to preparing for their next examinations – all these scripts returned in class alongside generic feedback (see my

handout

) – so students can see why they got the marks they did

Scripts collected in again after this sessionSlide8

Why not do this routinely?

We run scared of students cross-comparing/appealing (but collect in the scripts minimises this)

We think it takes too much time (my session does not)

The more explicit are the marking criteria the less effort needed to prepare for this

I suggest each programme could pick one module per semester to apply exam feedback to.