Commentary Articles

The Commentary articles provide an introduction to the major themes that emerged from the FAST case studies and related seminal literature.

Hills, L. and Glover, C. (2006) How to understand your own practice: Quantitative and qualitative methods.

A short commentary article about the value of evaluating teaching and learning, the use of qualitative or quantitative tools in evaluating teaching and learning and critique of the three main FAST tools used in the project, the sort of data they reveal and any issues that arose.

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Mills, J., and Glover C. (2006) Who provides the feedback - self and peer assessment?

Worried that students perceived feedback as written comments on returned work and any other form of feedback, such as oral feedback, as “teaching” or “help” this commentary article suggests that peer assessment enables assessment for learning, as well as assessment of learning, offering benefits to staff and students alike, and contributing to a holistic approach to enhancing the student learning experience.

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Brown, E. (2006) Effective feedback

Although there is a wealth of literature about the characteristics and value of feedback, what constitutes feed forward appears to have been less well articulated. This article considers how written feedback in its broadest sense can be developed such that it feeds forward effectively. It includes, therefore, the written comments that teachers make on students’ written work, exemplars of answers that they provide, and the instantaneous, pre-prepared feedback that they may receive from on-line assessment.

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Glover, C. (2006) The Sheffield Hallam University Questionnaire (SHUq)

This article provides a commentary about the Sheffield Hallam University Questionnaire, (SHUq) The SHUQ allows a clearer insight into student perception of feedback and its usefulness by exploring the way students perceive the existence, value and timing of the feedback they receive through a variety of media (written, oral, electronic) and settings (individual, group). This article begins to address some of the issues and observations from using the SHUq.

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Brown, E. (2006) The feedback coding tool

This commentary article introduces the feedback coding-tool, designed for analysing written feedback, primarily to evaluate its potential for enhancing students’ learning, although the feedback profiles generated may also shed light on some assessment criteria that you are using. The tool has evolved with time and our experiences of using it, and the version presented here is the most recent one.

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Brown, E. (2006) The Assessment Experience Questionnaire (AEQ)

This commentary article introduces the AEQ, a questionnaire to provide quick-and-easy evidence from students about the extent to which they perceive that their assessment meets the conditions of effective formative assessment (Gibbs and Simpson , 2003) The AEQ can be used in the first-stage evaluation of a single module or to compare a suite of modules and, as with all the FAST tools, it can be adapted to suit your own needs and the type of assessment that is to be evaluated.

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