Adjusting students' attitudes so
that they benefit from feedback
Quintin Cutts, Peter Saffrey
Dept of Computing Science, Glasgow Uni
Steve Draper
Dept of Psychology, Glasgow Uni
Emily Durrant
Centre for Confidence and Well-being, Glasgow
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Mindsets & Programming
• Suggestion
– Learning to program at university can easily generate a fixed M/S
• Very high number of failure messages
• School & university programming widely different
• Very wide ability range in Yr 1 classes
• Paradoxically
– Experienced programmers must have a growth m/s
– but a fixed mindset towards learners– "programmers born not made"
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
3 Implementations of Dweck
• Explicit Mindset Training - (M)
– 4 x 10-minute teaching sessions, led by tutors
• Crib sheet / Wiki - (W)
– originated from McCartney et al (2007) – "35
ways that students get unstuck"
• Feedback 'inducement' - (F)
– Message on feedback sheet encouraging
engagement
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Main items for this student highlighted
"Remember, learning to program can take a
surprising amount of time and effort – students
may get there at different rates, but almost all
students who put in the time & effort get there
eventually. Making good use of the feedback on
this sheet is an essential part of this process."
"Feedback points – mostly
worth reading, even if not
specifically identified for you."
Mark (on a 4-point
scale) held to bottom of
second side of sheet.
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Experiment
• Context
– Level 1, 2 semester (24 wk) course
– 2 lectures per week + 2hr lab/tutorial - 12 tutorial groups
– Wk 6, Wk 13 class tests and Wk 12 lab exam
• Interventions spread across groups
– 2 Control, 2M, 2W, 2F, 1MW, 1MF, 1WF, 1WMF
• Tutor training sessions and delivery
– 1 for Wiki – used from Wk 2
– 4 for Mindsets – delivered in Wks 2-5
– no training for F – sheet given in Wks 3, 5, 7, 9
• Measures
– Wk 1 and Wk 7 measures of mindset, self-efficacy, hope, +/- affect
– Class tests and lab exam
– Self-reported measure of previous experience
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Impact of Intervention on Mindset
Impact of Mindset/Feedback on
Class Test 1 score
Impact of Mindset/Feedback on
final Degree Exam
Effect Size
amounts to
0.8 of a
grade
What to make of it…
• W only applicable to early stages
– therefore cannot say much about result
• All students are receiving the relatively high quality
feedback
• Significant result only comes with both M and F
–
–
–
–
tutors taught the general mindset theory
the feedback was very specific to their learning experience
the feedback message reminds them of the value of feedback
students take the feedback seriously, acting upon it, and so
achieve higher grades
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Sheet is directive and informative…
• … right at the point of receipt of the feedback
• We state the interpretation we think is most important
– Learning to program takes time. You'll get there with sufficient effort.
It's worth making use of this feedback. [and we almost hide the 'mark']
• We give appropriate actions
– "Look at items…" <the circled items>
– "F/b points – mostly worth reading, even if not identified for you"
• …and the feedback is plentiful
– far more than any tutor could hand write
– Whole sentences, real explanations, with references
• Feedback sheets become a potentially major resource
– Not cheap to develop, but speeds up tutor marking time
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Web questionnaire – 35 rspns
• 70% found the sheets (v.) helpful
• 50% motivated to work harder
• 55% find sheets helped later
• Comments
– Although the program may have worked, the sheet provided
comments on how you could have improved the program…
– … gave me the confidence and then the joy to continue to work
hard…
– I was getting problems outlined - I started working harder on next
programs, so I could sort these problems before submission. I
have started meeting deadlines much more efficiently.
– Plenty of good common sense pointers are even now continuing to
be helpful. Especially on structure.
– Feedback in this course is better than that in other courses. =].
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Follow-on
• This session
– told the tutors about the result
– gave them the information about Mindsets
– Threaded the Mindset story into several lectures
• including a session entirely devoted to it after the first class
test
– Rubric on feedback sheets for all students
• Effects uncertain yet
– January test results not available
• Potentially a mistake not to get the tutors to do the
training
– area for future study
LTC Seminar 21-1-09
Conclusions
• Students amenable to subtle messages when used
within an appropriate context
• We need to promote our attitude towards learning
– how learning works best
– the values we place on feedback
– the actions we expect them to take
• We need to explore further…
– the attitudes of the entire teaching team
LTC Seminar 21-1-09