Red ink or blue? Providing feedback in an electronic world

Abstract

It is accepted that the provision of effective and timely feedback on written assessments is crucial to promoting student progress. For distance learning students, feedback on performance in summative assignments may be the primary teaching interaction throughout a module. Whilst there have been a limited number of studies into the nature of tutor feedback and how students perceive it, little research has been conducted into the perceptions on which tutors model their feedback and how they put these into practice. This presentation reports on a study of the motivations of tutors, and the methods they employ, when providing feedback to students studying an Open University (UK) distance learning Level 1 Technology module.