Audio-feedback versus Written-feedback: A Dialogic Insight

Ensuring active student use of assignment feedback has proved to be a constant area of concern for many a Higher Education institution. Despite audio-technology via Turnitin Grade Mark being a new and emerging approach to providing students with feedback, little research evidence employs a clear pedagogical rationale for its effective application. This research aims to identify where and why audio-technology can add value to students’ learning experience in higher education, by theoretically engaging with ‘Dialogic pedagogy’; a pedagogy taking perspective from Vygotsky (1978) and social constructivist interpretations of learning (e.g. Palinscar 1998). Newly emerging feedback literature engages with this theory, by purposing the need to refocus feedback practice away from the notion of tutors providing one-way feedback to students and towards the notion of dialogic exchanges in which tutors and students are jointly involved in conversations about learning (e.g. Yang & Carless, 2013). The research will utilise a mixed method ‘exploratory sequential’ design, whereby the initial survey data will be followed by semi-structured interviews so to allow a greater depth of understanding. Participants in the research will be both staff and students from the Psychology and Criminology Departments within Aberystwyth University. The themes to be addressed in the research are: the use of technology to facilitate feedback; the use of technology to stimulate tutor and student dialogue; and the promotion of student autonomy and reflective interaction with feedback. Pedagogical implications of the data will be drawn, including ‘recommendations for best practice’ founded within dialogic theory. It is believed such conclusions will hold a positive impact within the learning and teaching community; not only by providing the informed and guided use of new audio-technologies in Higher Education institutions but also by enhancing the learning experience of students.