Feedback: The Role Of Teacher Feedback In Formative Assessment

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Introduction:
For long assessment has been viewed primarily as a means of measuring student learning for accountability purposes. However, recently, there has been a call for a balanced assessment systems which can be used to advance learning in addition to measuring student learning for accountability decisions 1.
Feedback is one of the most powerful influences on learning. There is strong support for the role of teacher feedback in the formative assessment in literature. The constructive feedback where in the students are informed about the task at hand and how to perform it more effectively has a higher effect size as compared to feedback given in the form of just grades or marks2.
OSCE and OSPE, as described by Harden and group as …show more content…

A study conducted modified the existing OSPE sessions from existing OSCE materials to provide feedback to students on their doctor–patient relationship skills and history and physical examination skills. The study showed that modified OSPE is an efficient use of teaching resources in addition to its educational impact5. Another study also used OSCE with video-taped feed back and assessment as a teaching tool which had a favorable response from both students and the tutors 6. An Indian study from NIMHANS -Adapted OSCE for post graduate psychiatry training .They used the term OSCAF (objective structured clinical assessment and feedback) for the modified method. They proposed it to be convenient, cost effective training method in psychiatry. However they have recommended further refinements in rating and feedback methods to enhance its utility7. The present study also showed a positive response for the modified OSPE i.e. OSPAF to be a good teaching tool with an efficient use of the existing resources as evidenced in the feedback from students and the focused group discussions with students and faculty. However most of these studies have not quantified the change occurred in the performance of the students after using the modified method. The present study tried to evaluate the change seen in the performance by comparing the pre-test and post-test results of the two groups. However the results did not show any significant difference among the two groups and between the pretest and post- test scores. As the margin for improvement in the post test scores was very less as the scores obtained in the pretest scores were comparatively higher than the conventional practical examinations, the change could have been insignificant13. Thus the difficulty index of the task is an important factor which determines the effect size of the feedback. Also as the post-test was not a part of the of the regular

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