Do you provide feedback
to your students? Feedback given by instructors leads to increased student
engagement and higher quality learning (Sarcona, Dirhan, & Davidson, 2020).
There are different ways to provide feedback to students. Typically, instructors use hand-written,
or typed text to provide evaluative remarks and suggestions for improvement. One
alternative is audio feedback. The purpose of this article is to discussion
audio feedback and highlight Audacity as a technology for making audio
recordings.
Sarcona, Dirhan, and Davidson (2020) explored the use of audio and written feedback. The qualitative study comprised 116 undergraduate university students. Instructors alternated between written and audio feedback for two major projects: writing a personal statement assignment and conducting nutrition counseling sessions. These were scaffolding assignments with formative feedback on each task and a summative assessment for the final assignment. Students implemented the instructors’ audio feedback from the summative assessment as part of the final assignment. Most students appreciated the personal nature of hearing the instructors’ voice in the audio feedback.
In a three-year longitudinal study, students indicated a preference for audio feedback over written feedback. The study comprised students enrolled in nine postgraduate Computer Education units of study and took place over a three-year period across five teaching sessions. Instructors provided audio feedback as mp3 files for all assessment tasks across all nine units. Students had the option to download or listen to the mp3 files uploaded in the learning management system. As with similar studies, the results showed that most students found audio feedback to be both clear and easy to follow and more personal than written feedback (Parkes & Fletcher (2017).
Audio feedback can be given using such software as Audacity. Audacity is a free, open source, cross-platform audio software for audio recording and editing that is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. The software has advanced features, but using the basic features will work well for recording audio feedback. Once you get into Audacity, you simply click the record button to start recording. Export the finished recording in MP3 format to upload in a learning management system as feedback to a student’s assessment (Audacity, 2020).
In conclusion, using audio feedback for comments to students on assessments is an alternative to the traditional written or text-based responses to student performance. The ability to provide audio feedback through an online platform is an innovative technology. As with any other technology, using audacity is an available option. Think about how you can incorporate audio feedback in your courses.
References
Audacity. (2020).
About. Retrieved from https://www.audacityteam.org/about/
Parkes, M., & Fletcher, P. (2017). A longitudinal, quantitative study of student attitudes towards audio feedback for assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 42(7), 1046–1053. doi:10.1080/02602938.2016.1224810
Sarcona, A., Dirhan, D., & Davidson, P. (2020). An overview of audio and written feedback from students’ and instructors’ perspective. Educational Media International, 57(1), 47–60. doi:10.1080/09523987.2020.1744853
Cite this blog: Washington, G. (2020, September 30). Using
Audacity for Audio Feedback [Blog post]. Retrieved
from https://pedagogybeforetechnology.blogspot.com/
Image source: https://www.audacityteam.org/
