Creating Spaces for Formative Feedback in Lectures : Understanding how use of educational technology can support formative assessment in lectures in higher education

Abstract

In this thesis, I examine how the use of educational technology has the potential to create moments of contingency and, through those moments, to transform the premises for formative assessment in lectures. The main research questions were: What affordances are there in using participatory tools to support formative assessment in lectures? In my research, I set out to explore an intervention in which a student response system (Turning Point) and a shared online whiteboard (Flinga) were used to support a formative assessment in the context of lectures in two university courses, one in psychology and one in teacher education. A design-based research approach (Barab & Squire, 2004) and a sequential mixed methods design (Ivankova, 2014) were used to explore these activities. The thesis is situated within a sociocultural perspective in which knowledge processes are viewed as social processes of co-construction of knowledge through dialogue (Wertsch, 1993). In the three articles issuing from this research, I seek to examine technology-supported formative assessment in lectures from different angles and using different methods (Survey, interviews, recordings of peer discussions, analysis of material produced in lectures and focus group interviews with students and lecturers). In the first article (Ludvigsen, Krumsvik & Furnes, 2015), we used a sequential mixed-methods design to examine student perceptions and the use of feedback when student response systems were used in lectures for an undergraduate methods course. Most of the students valued the possibility of receiving feedback on their understanding during lectures to reflect on their learning, and they especially emphasised that explaining their thinking while discussing questions with their peers was valuable as a feedback space, in addition to feedback generated through the technology used and from the lecturer. Students mostly used feedback to ‘check things up’, ‘discuss with peers’ and ‘focus reading’. To examine what is achieved in these discussions, in the second article (Ludvigsen, Krumsvik, & Breivik, 2020), we explored the audio-recorded discussions in detail. We used the framework of exploratory talk (Littleton & Mercer, 2013) as a lens through which to examine patterns of talk in 87 peer discussions. In 68 of these discussions, students were able to create spaces in which to exchange and elaborate on each other’s ideas and understanding of concepts. However, in the remaining cases, students engaged in superficial discussions, only referring to the number (the numbered alternatives in multiple-choice questions) without any further elaboration or justification. In the analysis of this material, we also found that in the majority of the discussions, students expressed uncertainty, or they were guessing. This led us to question the quality of the inferences to be drawn, based on the activities, and we argued for the use of tools that would allow complexity and questions to surface. In the third article (Ludvigsen, Ness, & Timmis, 2019), we explored the affordances of using an online collaborative whiteboard to open, widen and deepen dialogic spaces in lectures, using interviews with students and lecturers, audio recordings of peer discussions and material produced in lectures as data sources. Based on two cases, we argued that this technology has the potential to transform the lecture into a ‘dialog space’ (Wegerif, 2013) for students to participate in activities in which they can connect new ideas to their previous knowledge and experiences. We argued that opening dialogical spaces provides students with rich possibilities for reflecting on concepts and developing arguments, providing feedback on students’ understanding of course content. Across the articles, we suggest that moments of contingency can be made explicit when using technology-supported formative assessment activities in lectures. When students share knowledge, questions and ideas, it becomes possible for them to become aware of each other’s thinking in ways that would not otherwise be possible in a lecture environment. Students find this experience to be valuable in supporting their learning in lectures and in their coursework. This thesis contributes to educational research and practice by showing how the use of participatory tools supports students’ learning process in lectures, and how it influences students’ work outside of the lectures. Second, it offers insight into the micro-processes that occur between students when they engage in peer discussions and reveals how the tools used facilitate interaction: between students in the group, across groups and between the students and the lecturer. Third, the thesis offers practical guidance on how to use participatory tools to facilitate formative assessment in large lectures.