Last time I blamed time and workload for the lack of updates, but this time the reason there is only one post representing four sessions is in part a question of time but more importantly a question of content. This will hopefully make more sense as I go on to explain below!

(For more information about what scholarship circles involve, please look here and for write-ups of previous scholarship circles, here

You might also be interested in session 1 / session 2 / session 3 and 4 of this particular circle.)

Session 5 saw us finishing off what we started in Session 4 – i.e. editing the error correction code to make it clearer and more student-friendly. So, nothing to add for that, really! It was what it was – see write-up of Session 4 for an insight.

Sessions 6 and 7 were very interesting – we talked about potential research directions for our scholarship circle. We started with two possibilities. I suggested that we replicate the M.A. research regarding response to feedback that started the whole scholarship circle off and see if the changes we are making have had any effect. At the same time as I had that idea, another of our members brought forward the idea of participating in a study that is going to be carried out by a person who works in the Psychology department at Sheffield University, regarding reflection on feedback and locus of control. What both of these have in common is that they are not mine to talk about in any great depth on a public platform given that one has not yet been published and the other is still in its planning stages.

Session 6

So, in session 6, the M.A. researcher told us, in depth, all about her methodology, as in theory if we were to replicate that study we would be using that methodology and then we also heard about the ideas and tools involved in the Psychology department research. From the former, it was absolutely fascinating to hear about how everything was done and also straightforward enough to identify that replicating that study would take up too much time at critical assessment points when people are already pressed for time: it’s one thing to give up sleeping if you are trying to do your M.A. dissertation to distinction level (congratulations!) but another if you are just working full time and don’t necessarily want to take on that level of workload out of the goodness of your heart! We want to do research, but we also want to be realistic. With regards to the latter, it sounded potentially interesting but while we heard about the idea, we didn’t see the tools it would involve using until Session 7. The only tool that we contributed was the reflection task that we have newly integrated into our programme, which students have to complete after they receive feedback on the first draft of their assignments.

Session 7

Between Session 6 and 7, we got hold of the tools (emailed to us by the member in touch with the research in the Psychology department) and were able to have a look in advance of Session 7. In Session 7, we discussed the tools (questionnaires) and agreed that while some elements of them were potentially workable and interesting, there were enough issues regarding the content, language and length that it perhaps wasn’t the right direction for us to take after all. The tools had been produced for a different context (first year undergraduate psychology students). We decided that what we needed was to be able to use questionnaires that were geared a) towards our context and students and b) towards finding out what we want to know. We also talked about the aim of our research, as obviously the aim of a piece of research has a big impact on how you go about doing that research. Broadly, we want to better understand our students’ response to feedback and from that be able to adapt what we do with our feedback to be as useful as it possibly can be for the students. We spent some time discussing what kinds of questions might be included in such a questionnaire.

So, at this point, we began the shift away from focusing on those two studies, one existing, complete but unpublished, and one proposed,  and towards deciding on our own way forward, which became the focus of session 8…

Session 8

Between Session 7 and Session 8, our M.A. Researcher sent us an email pointing out that in order to think about what we want to include in our questionnaires, we first need to have a clear idea of what our research questions are. So that was the first thing we discussed.

One fairly important thing that we decided today as part of that discussion about research questions was that it would be better to focus on one thing at a time. So, rather than focusing on all the types of feedback that Turnitin has to offer within one project, this time round focus specifically on the quickmarks (which, of course, we have recently been working on!). Then, next time round we could shift the focus to another aspect. This is in keeping with our recognition of the need to be realistic regarding what we can achieve, so as to avoid setting ourselves up for failure. (I think this is a key thing to bear in mind for anybody wanting to set up a scholarship circle like this!) The questions we decided on were:

1. Do students understand the purpose of feedback and our expectations of them when responding to feedback?
2. How do students respond to the Quickmarks?

Questions that got thrown around in the course of this discussion were:

• Do students prioritise some codes over others? E.g. do they go for the ones they think are more treatable?
• What codes do students recognise immediately?
• If they don’t immediately recognise the codes, do they read the descriptions offered?
• Do they click on the links in the descriptions?
• Do they do anything with those links after opening them? (One of the students in the M.A. research opened all the links but then never did anything with them!)
• How much time do they believe they should spend on this feedback?
• How long are students spending on looking at the feedback in total?
• How do students split their time between Quickmarks (/”In-text feedback” so includes comments and text-on-text a.k.a. the “T” option, which some of us haven’t previously used!) and general comments and the grade form?

Of course, these questions will feed in to the tool that we go on to design.

We identified that our learner training ideas e.g. the reflection form, improving the video that introduces them to Turnitin feedback, developing a task to go with the video in which they answer questions and in so doing create themselves a record of the important information that they can refer back to etc. can and should be worked on without waiting to do the research. That way, having done what we can to improve things based on our current understanding, we can use the research to highlight any gaps.

We also realised that for the data regarding Quickmarks to be useful, it would be good for it to be specific. So, one thing on our list of things to find out is whether Googleforms would allow us to have an item in which students identify which QMs they were given in their text and then answer questions regarding their attitude to those Quickmarks, how clear they were etc. Currently we are planning on using Googleforms to collect data as it is easy to administer and organises the results in a visually useful way. Of course that decision may be changed based on whether or not it allows us to do what we want to do.

Lots more to discuss and hopefully we will be able to squeeze in one more meeting next week (marking week, but only one exam to mark, most unusually! – in a normal marking week, it just would not be possible) before the Christmas holidays begin… we shall see! Overall, I think it will be great to carry out research as a scholarship group and use it to inform what we do (hence my overambitious as it turns out initial idea…). Exciting times! 🙂