‘What’s the point?’ Do annotations on students’ work promote self-regulation?

‘What’s the point?’ Do annotations on students’ work promote self-regulation?

As one component of the feedback process, annotations on student work should focus upon providing explanations and guidance, which encourage students to use the comments to develop their abilities to act as self-regulated learners; thus promoting what Carless (2015) refers to as the new paradigm of feedback practices. This is contrary to the old paradigm in which annotations merely serve to transfer information, characterised by evaluative statements and corrective advice. It is argued that it is not only the content of the message, but also the language used, which has an impact upon the sustainability of this form of feedback practice. The current study reports on an analysis of annotations in the form of 1760 in-text comments added by markers to 52 summative essays. Findings indicated that the majority of comments were directed at the level of task performance rather than relating to the process (i.e. giving students advice about their future work and regulation of their actions). Additionally, there were positive correlations found between grades and words expressing a positive emotional tone, as well as negative correlations between grades and words which had connotations of sadness, risk and were phrased as questions. It appears that all annotations encourage the old paradigm as they focus upon the delivery of information, which minimises the potential upon student learning. It is argued that markers’ practices could be modified to incorporate appropriate language and direction which could have a more positive impact upon students learning, maximising the benefit of in-text comments.

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