Student appreciation of data-driven feedback: A pilot study on OnTask

Abstract

Feedback plays a crucial role in student learning. Learning analytics (LA) has demonstrated potential in addressing prominent challenges with feedback practice, such as enabling timely feedback based on insights obtained from large data sets. However, there is insufficient research looking into relations between student expectations of feedback and their experience with LA-based feedback. This paper presents a pilot study that examined students’ experience of LA-based feedback, offered with the OnTask system, taking into consideration the factors of students’self-efficacy and self-regulation skills. Two surveys were carried out at a Brazilian university, and the results highlighted important implications for LA-based feedback practice, including leveraging the ‘partnership’ between the human teacher and the computer, and developing feedback literacy among learners.