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Teaching for
Active
Learning
TAL2019
Cita Nørgård, Lotte Dyhrberg O’Neill & Vibeke Damlund (red.)
Proceedings fra konferencen TAL2019
på Syddansk Universitet, 2019
ISBN 978-87-94006-11-8
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Indholdsfortegnelse
Teaching for Active Learning TAL2019 Special focus: Teaching for Employability ......................... 3
Erhvervsstudenterforskning på elitemodul ................................................................................. 7
Fra traditionel undervisning til opbygning af en læringskultur ................................................... 12
Redesigning a research methods course: Peer feedback as a method to build core skills in
research design ........................................................................................................................ 19
Springboard festival – Companies and students in a kind of collaboration ................................. 24
Using the drawing answer type in a student response system ................................................... 29
Employability – Using Design Activities to Enhance Students’ Reflections on Value and Meaning
................................................................................................................................................ 33
Teaching for Dream Jobs .......................................................................................................... 42
Brugen af praksisarenaer til at træne transfer .......................................................................... 47
Peer-feedback ved brug af Peergrade – forbedrer det de studerendes læring? .......................... 48
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Redesigning a research methods course:
Peer feedback as a method to build core
skills in research design
Charlotte Albrechtsen, External Lecturer, Department for Marketing and Management, University of
Southern Denmark
Tine Wirenfeldt Jensen, External Lecturer, SDU Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Southern
Denmark
Introduction
This paper describes how peer feedback activities were integrated in a research methods course to build
core disciplinary skills. Using peer feedback for this purpose draws on the close relation between peer
feedback and participant response, as feedback is provided from the perspective of the respondent or
interviewee. We present the peer feedback triangle as a model that was used to guide implementation of
peer feedback in the course.
When learning how to design and conduct empirical research, many students struggle with the important
concepts of validity and reliability, which are related to the quality of the research. While students may be
able to demonstrate an intellectual understanding of the concepts, they often fail to apply them in practice
when designing questionnaires and qualitative interview guides.
Peer feedback was used to create awareness of how the design of research instruments affects the
reliability and validity of the research undertaken. Peer feedback allowed students to test and fine-tune
their questionnaires and qualitative interview guides, revealing reliability and validity problems in an early
stage of the research process.
Background of the learning activity
The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southern Denmark offered funding for increasing feedback
activities in the faculty’s courses in 2017/2018. The goal was to enhance disciplinary learning and heighten
student employability. The teacher of the course Research Design and Methods applied for funding for
consulting with an educational developer and feedback expert on overall course design as well as a
student-aimed workshop.
The two-semester course in Research Design and Methods is a compulsory part of the Bachelor’s degree
programme in International Business Communication. The course consists of three hours of weekly
lectures, and between 40 and 60 students are typically enrolled. Understanding the concepts of validity and
reliability (Brymann, 2016; Kvale & Brinkmann, 2015; Jensen & Knudsen, 2009) and applying them when
designing research projects and research instruments is integral to the course.
The rationale behind the initiative was a recognition of the close relation between peer feedback and
participant response. Acting as respondents, peers can provide feedback on for example their
understanding of a survey question. The students who created the question could use this information to
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gauge the reliability of the particular question. See more examples of how peer feedback can be used to
evaluate the validity and reliability of research instruments in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Examples of how peer feedback can be used to assess the validity and reliability of research instruments.
Theoretical foundations of the activity
Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006) point out that peer feedback is particularly suited to learning to use
evaluation criteria and standards and to apply these to one’s own academic work. Likewise, Tai et al. (2018)
state that peer feedback can enable students to build evaluative judgement, understood as “the capability
to make decisions about the quality of work of oneself and others” in order to become “independent
students and eventually effective practitioners” (Tai et al., 2018). Engaging in peer feedback has a learning
potential that by far exceeds the specific course, as Lui and Carless argue it can enable students “to take an
active role in the management of their own learning” (Liu and Carless, 2006).
However, peer feedback activities do not always reach this potential (Paulus, 1999). If key elements are
overlooked, peer feedback is not likely to work. Therefore, the students were presented with the peer
feedback triangle, which was developed by feedback expert and educational developer Tine Wirenfeldt
Jensen (Jensen & Jensen, 2011; Jensen, Jensen & Jørgensen, 2013). The model points to the three
fundamentals of successful peer feedback: 1. the existence of a shared feedback object and a shared
understanding of the status of this object, 2. the existence and use of shared feedback criteria (Nicol &
Macfarlane-Dick, 2006) and 3. the application of well described feedback methods.
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Figure 2: The peer feedback triangle.
Learning objective and description of the activity
The objective of the peer feedback activities was to build core disciplinary skills related to designing and
conducting empirical research by assessing the validity and reliability of research instruments.
Three types of peer feedback activities were implemented in the course:
1. A three-hour workshop by an external feedback expert introduced theory on peer feedback and
research-based peer feedback methods to enable students to conduct peer feedback
independently in a qualified manner. The peer feedback triangle (Figure 2) was used as a
theoretically grounded model for engaging in effective peer feedback. Peer feedback was
presented to students as a method to build core disciplinary skills.
2. Shorter in-class peer feedback activities (10 - 20 min.) were integrated into the lectures. E.g.
preparing, giving and receiving peer feedback in groups on phrasing of survey questions using
explicit criteria and methods (Albrechtsen & Jakobsen, 2018).
3. Longer scaffolded peer feedback activities (30 - 45 min.) connected to the students’ own exam
projects were carried out by the students between the lectures. E.g. testing an interview guide.
Students reflected upon the learning outcome of these activities in writing by answering a few
open questions in a work sheet, which was afterwards sent to the teacher. The teacher would then
summarize students’ experiences with the activities in class. The teacher’s summaries served to
integrate the feedback activities into the classes and also had a motivational function, as insightful
reflections from different groups were highlighted.
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Experiences with the activity
The students took part in the peer feedback activities throughout the course. Nearly all students chose to
participate in the elective feedback workshop. Students engaged actively with criteria to train core
concepts and skills, especially in the workshop and during in-class activities. In these settings, peer
feedback both served as a method to build core disciplinary skills as well as a general method to increase
student engagement.
However, the majority of students did not carry out the longer scaffolded group activities between the
classes. They might have needed more support and motivation in order to engage with these activities.
There seems to be a tendency among students to perceive activities between lectures as less central to the
course or even optional. In the following courses, some of the longer, scaffolded activities were therefore
converted into in-class activities instead of taking place between lectures. Some of the in-class peer
feedback activities were also further developed and implemented in the following courses.
Seventeen students choose to participate in the final course evaluation, which was conducted by using a
standard form provided by the department. Thirteen students agreed that they were in the process of
acquiring the competencies central to the course. Interestingly, the students to a much lesser degree
indicated that they had increased their generic academic skills, even though they had engaged extensively
with peer feedback on both a theoretical and practical level throughout the course. The specific term peer
feedback was not used on the form, they were asked to evaluate their “generic academic skills”. This might
point to a need to enable students to recognize that peer feedback contributes to building not only core
but also generic skills and possibly also a need to jointly explore the meaning of the concept of generic
academic skills as used in the evaluation form.
Conclusion
Peer feedback was integrated into a redesign of a research methods course to help students gain a practical
understanding of the concepts of validity and reliability through an awareness of how the design of
research instruments affects the quality of the research. Peer feedback was especially suited to this
purpose because of the connection between peer feedback and participant response.
The redesign created space for the students to engage more actively with criteria to train some of the
competencies needed when conducting empirical research. By participating in feedback activities, the
students seemed to acquire generic academic skills related to peer feedback, although they did not
recognise this when evaluating the course. Both students’ and teachers’ perception of the concept of
generic academic skills might be explored.
Other teachers who wish to integrate peer feedback into their courses could consider if there are any
specific core disciplinary skills where peer feedback activities would be particularly suited. It is important to
provide the tools necessary for students to engage in high quality peer feedback. Moreover, consideration
must be given to how feedback activities are incorporated into the course design – whether they are placed
in class or between lectures, and how students may be supported and motivated to carry out peer
feedback activities on their own.
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