Case 3
This study employed audio feedback to enhance student learning engagement and outcomes in group projects which was conducted in a General Education foundation course at tertiary level in Hong Kong. Mixed methods were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of audio feedback on learning and explore the factors mediating its effectiveness. The findings showed that audio feedback significantly enhanced student emotional engagement and critical thinking disposition. The improvement of quality of group presentations at the end of the projects were also reported. More importantly, the findings revealed that beyond technological affordance and problems, dialogues with teacher, content of audio feedback, student learning motivation and time issue mediated the effectiveness of audio feedback on project-based learning. This study contributes to our understanding of using audio feedback to guide students’ group projects considering its mediating factors and the possible interaction among these factors.
Benefit
‘The teacher gave us comments on if our project proposal was meaningful and feasible. I think he respected our choice and did not force us to follow up his ideas. We did the work under teachers’ guidance which kept us on the track. We felt safe and confident to do our project.’
‘The biggest advantage of audio teacher feedback is its convenience. You can get teacher feedback when you available. You don’t need to negotiate with the teacher about consultation time. You know, this is group work and our group members come from different majors. It is very hard to find time when we are all available. Meanwhile, you can repeatedly listened to your teachers’ feedback if you like.’
‘Listening to teacher’s feedback made us feel that our teacher was here for help and he was one of our team. The tones and emphasis made by him in the comments gave us confidence and a sense of closeness. We took initiative to talk with him more about our project by replying to his comments and even asking him questions after tutorial. ’
Challenge
‘Because there is a gap among the time when we listened to teacher’s comments, when we replied to his comment and when we listened to his new comments, so it might cause some misunderstanding or ignorance of some comments. If we could communicate with each other online at the same time, it would be benefit us more.’
‘Student learning motivation matters in the feedback process. I have students who have strong learning motivation. Even if you don’t give feedback to them, they will come to your office for feedback. I also have some students who just want to finish the course work. They seldom replied to my comments and revised their work. They might not gain a lot from my feedback. ’
‘Some students told me that sometimes our deadline of replying to teacher’s comments coincided with the deadline of their major work. When they faced the time conflict between their major course learning and GE course learning, they tended to choose the former one since they believed their major work was more important for their future.’