Students’ perceptions of screencast feedback in postgraduate research supervision

Abstract

Feedback plays a critical role in identifying areas to improve, ultimately enhancing and supporting the learning process. A growing body of research has investigated student perceptions of written feedback in higher education; however few studies have considered feedback perceptions in one-on-one contexts such as postgraduate projects, in particular audio-visual feedback through screencasts. Feedback narrows the gap between current and desired performance, and thereby positively contributes to the student learning experience. Engaging a student’s visual and auditory senses through screencasts has been demonstrated by previous studies to enhance learning. The personalised and conversational nature of audio-visual feedback is considered to support students’ comprehension of, and engagement with feedback. Furthermore, the use of expression through tone and emphasis of voice is believed to convey nuanced meaning which differs from written communication. This enables ‘meaning’ that is frequently lost in written feedback to be transmitted and retained, thus supporting students to better understand