Feedback from tutor marked assessments (TMA's) are a major component of the distance student learning experience.  However, a significant proportion of students do not pick up their marked TMA’s and hence miss out on these invaluable insights to inform their ongoing learning.  In 2019, this represented around 10% for all 19J modules across the University – so around 40,000 uncollected scripts which is an enormous amount of work from tutors.  

An eSTEem funded research project (Calvert and Morris, 2020) and limited to statistics modules within STEM, focused on gaining insight into the reasons why students do not take access their feedback and use this in their subsequent learning and assessments.   Common reasons for failure to pick up included forgetfulness, unawareness of availability, fear of reading negative comments and lack of student learning engagement.

During the online session, the technological approaches to monitor assignment pick-up will be demonstrated. Additionally, participants will be encouraged to research details of the pick-up rate on their modules, consider opportunities to implement such technological approaches and encourage timely forward activities with their students.

Reference:

Calvert, C. and Morris, C. (2020). “Improving student use of feedback on marked TMAs”. An OU eSTEem funded project Final Report, August 2020. Available at https://openuniv.sharepoint.com/sites/units/lds/scholarship-exchange/documents/student use of tma feedback.pdf [Accessed on 24/1/22].