Assessing student learning outcomes: an investigation of the relationship among feedback measures

College Student Journal, Sept, 2003 by Mary L. Rucker, Stephanie Thomson

The goal of the present study was to examine the relationship among the various measures of feedback on male and female students' perception of the feedback process. The findings indicated that male students perceived their professors as giving more critical feedback than female students.

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The past thirty years of feedback research has identified a number of constructs related to instructional development in service and academic organizations (Bourhis & Allen, 1998). Constructs such as source of feedback (Greller, 1980), recipient of feedback (Brinko, 1993; Clark & Bergstrom, 1983), content of feedback (Murray, 1987), mode of feedback (Ilgen, Fisher, & Taylor, 1979), and occasion of feedback (Brinko, 1993) have contributed to the process of feedback as an evaluative practice. Even though majority of literature has focused on student evaluative feedback of teachers' instructional performances (Cohen & Herr, 1980), extant literature revealed that relatively few studies have focused on teacher feedback of students' performances (Griffee, 1996).

Organizational behavior, education, sociology, and cognitive psychology scholars contended that effective feedback is beneficial to individuals' professional development (Nelson & Quick, 2000). The practice of effective feedback on performance evaluations was critical to the academic success of college students (Griffee, 1996). With this in mind, college professors shared feedback to help students improve their performances and study habits. Additionally, professor-student social interactions tended to influence the enactment of the kind of feedback (e.g., positive, negative, neutral, accurate, concrete, descriptive, focused, etc.) students received from their professors.

In defining feedback, the authors draw on one definitions. First, feedback is "the pathway that completes two-way communication" (Nelson & Quick, 2000, p. 250) from professor to student.

Feedback occurs when the professor (source) provides the student (receiver) with a response to an assignment (message). Given this definition, the authors examined the relationship among the various measures of feedback.

Feedback Research

Source of Feedback (Who): Source of feedback may be faculty members who make evaluative judgments of student performances. An examination of the literature in education and psychology on effects of feedback generally focused on feedback from one source. More recently, education researchers have focused their attention on several sources of feedback (Brinko, 1993). For example, scholars and practitioners suggest that feedback is effective when the source is a criterion-referenced measurement that provides students with behavioral objectives that incorporate technology (e.g., e-mail, Website lectures) into various assignments (Bourhis & Allen, 1998).

Recipient of Feedback (Who): The recipient of feedback is most effective when it is viewed as two-way communication. Communication and organizational behavior instructors believe that feedback is more effective when students proactively seek feedback from their professors to improve their performances (Crant, 2000).

Mode of Feedback (How): Mode of feedback can be effective when conveyed in a variety of modes. It can be structured or unstructured (Brinko, 1993). It can be conveyed through the use of technology (e.g., e-mail, Website lectures) where students are required to engage the learning process.

Content of Feedback (What): Content is the most critical component of the feedback process. Feedback is more effective when it is concrete, specific, focused, and descriptive. For example, in small group settings, faculty can help students with specific issues when their oral performances are videotaped.

Occasion of Feedback (When): Feedback is more effective when it is given soon after a performance. For example, if a student presents an oral assignment and the professor provides critical feedback soon after that performance, the feedback will be more effective, timely, and necessary to help students change their self-perception and behavior resulting from the performance.

The following research question is posed:

RQ: What is the relationship between feedback as a learning process and the types of feedback students receive?

METHOD

Participants and Instrumentation

One hundred four volunteers drawn from communication and education courses (41 men, 63 women) at a university located in the South participated in this research. The items were adapted from research by Brinko (1993), and Menges & Brinko (1986) studies on classroom assessment techniques on feedback practices.

Reliabilities

All scales were measured on a 5-point scale 1= strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree. Reliability estimates, as determined by Cronbach's alpha, for the feedback measures were source of feedback = .83; recipient of feedback = .71; mode of Feedback =.78; content of feedback =.80; and occasion of feedback = .82. Reliability estimates for the total scale was .89. A high reliability coefficient (.70 or higher) indicates that the individual items on the instrument produced similar patterns and were homogeneous and reliable.