Students' Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Assessment Feedback as a Learning Tool in an Introductory Problem-solving Course

There have been calls in the literature for reforms to assessment to enhance student learning (Shepard, 2000). In many instances, this refers to the need to move from traditional assessment procedures that are characterized as content-heavy, summative, and norm-referenced approaches to more constructivist and student-centred approaches, often characterized as more " ... flexible, integrative, contextualized, process oriented, criteria referenced and formative" (Ellery, 2008, p.421). Whereas summative assessment techniques rarely allow students to act on the feedback provided, formative feedback provided throughout the learning process can be used to improve future work and promote learning (Ellery, 2008; Higgins, Hartley & Skelton, 2002) by providing students an opportunity to learn from mistakes. Allowing students to learn from their mistakes makes good pedagogical sense. To date there has been little research examining students' use of feedback (Higgins, Hartley, and Skelton, 2002). In an effort to begin to add to the literature in this area, this paper describes a study that explored the effectiveness of oral and written formative feedback when students were provided the opportunity to use it. The paper begins by reviewing literature related to assessment and how assessment relates to feedback in general. It then presents what the research has found in relation to students' perspectives of effective feedback and how they use it. The paper ends by presenting the results and discussion.