Student perceptions on academic feedback — A case study from Mechanical Engineering

摘要

Engineering students need to receive effective academic feedback on their assessments, as it reinforces appropriate student behavior or thinking, informs students of their academic progress and provides further opportunities for student engagement and learning. However, some academics are prone to just provide a final grade on student written assessments, with no specific written comments on where the student succeeded, faltered or can improve. This may negatively affect student learning. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the perceptions of African engineering students with regard to what they think academic feedback really entails. A case study is employed along with descriptive statistics of the quantitative data. The majority of the 38 respondents believe that academic feedback entails brief succinct comments. Many students agreed that they do receive oral feedback but no consistent written academic feedback. Students also tend to value constructive feedback more than critical feedback, as it will help them to avoid repeating mistakes while providing them with the opportunity for reflective practice. The results may assist academics to identify ways of rectifying student misconceptions of what academic feedback really entails, while empowering students with the knowledge regarding what type of academic feedback they may request on their written assessments.