Authentic feedback

An implementation showcase

Abstract

Authentic assessment calls for authentic feedback (Dawson et al., 2021). Authentic feedback promotes the development of capabilities that transfer effectively from university to the workplace. I showcase an innovative process to improve the feedback on an assessment task that simulates a real-life scenario to undergraduate finance students at the University of Sydney. Authentic feedback inspires students to engage in higher-order thinking, decision-making and problem-solving to resolve the feedback comments (Molloy et al., 2020). I schedule a series of pre-submission classes that are dedicated to debating the assessment task and required standards with students. Feedback can motivate students to evaluate their own work and incorporate the insights for better quality performance. I focus on developing students’ understanding of the criteria that concern practitioners. The impact of the process to deliver authentic feedback is reflected in students’ perceptions of the extent to which they were guided by helpful feedback on their learning.

The context is an undergraduate third-year elective unit, Bank Financial Management, which the University of Sydney Business School offers to students as part of its Bachelor of Commerce program. The objective of the unit is to expose students to the management of financial risks in banks. The unit’s assessment includes a group assignment on cybersecurity preparedness. The assignment is based on a case prepared by Korinek and Allayannis (2022). The case is framed from the perspective of the chief information officer of a mid-sized financial institution that has experienced a massive and unprecedented cyberattack in which $450 million of customer funds were stolen. The objectives of the assignment are for students to recognise the frequency and tremendous costs of cyberattacks, devise an incident response plan to cyberattacks and understand the cyber regulatory regime in which corporations operate. The unit attracts more than 500 enrolments per year.

I deploy strategies for students to engage productively in the kinds of feedback practices that take place in the workplace. The grading rubric describes qualities sought by employers. The pre-submission classes provide opportunities for students to debate the issues with their instructors and peers and to develop practical solutions. The instructions require students to write a business-style report and to treat a bank’s managers as their target audience for the report. The process relies upon the Canvas learning management system. The feedback is delivered through a series of discussions between students and educators. The feedback process has contributed to improvements in students’ impressions of the assessment task and the quality of the feedback itself.

This poster fits within the conference theme of technology enhanced learning (TEL) pedagogies. To deliver authentic feedback, the instructors augment face-to-face teaching with TEL including through video recordings, video conferencing and online discussion forums. I outline the opportunities and threats to educational quality posed by using TEL applications to generate authentic feedback.

By presenting and analysing an example from university teaching in finance, I demonstrate implications and issues arising from Dawson et al.’s (2021) framework for authentic feedback. Dawson et al.’s framework contains the five elements of realism, cognitive challenge, affective challenge, evaluative judgement and enactment. I apply the framework to a feedback process as a way of identifying its authenticity and guiding its adjustment in a more authentic direction.