1. Why use Screencasting?
& Practical Tips
Kirstie Edwards
BSc MA PhD PGCE QTLS FHEA FISTC
k.edwards@glyndwr.ac.uk
2. Fear of Review
• Document ownership (Mackiewicz and Riley, 2003)
• Power of authority (Varlander, 2008)
• Fear of failure / desire to be respected by
others / Politeness theory (Brown and Levinson, 1987)
3. Lack of Understanding
• Not understood (Bailey, 2009; Chanock, 2000; Lea and Street, 1998)
• Academic language (Bailey, 2009; Hughes, 2009)
• Level of critique (Middleton, 2011)
• Detail and conversational explanations
4. Emotions and Socialisation
• Personal: I’m talking to you about your work
(Middleton, 2011)
• Tutor engagement with student’s work
(Middleton, 2011)
• Sense of belonging (you are important)
• Tutor cares: tutor-student relationship
(Värlander, 2008)
• Nuances for level of critique
(Daft and Lengel, 1984; Middleton, 2011)
5. Timing
• Audio recordings are quicker (Lunt and Curran, 2010)
• Screencasting is quicker (Edwards et al., 2012)
• Requires separating out review and recording
6. Development of Guidelines/Tips
Guidelines developed from:
• Literature review
• Quality Assurance Agency for HE (QAA)
assessment standards (QAA, 2006)
• Interviews with screencasting users (Edwards, 2011)
• Primary research: ‘Screencast Feedback for Essays
on a Distance Learning MA in Professional
Communication: An Action Research Project’
(Edwards et al., 2012)
7. Guidelines Common to Written and
Screencast Feedback
• Review against the assessment criteria
• Balance positives and negatives
• Balance subject matter vs academic writing
• Explain clearly and concretely how to improve
on three aspects (Gossman, 2012)
• Respect, motivate and encourage students
8. Guidelines/Tips
for Screencast Feedback
• Identify and group high level and low level issues
• Prioritize feedback and decide which points are
the most important to cover
• Prioritize high level issues first, as students apply
these more in feed forward (not necessarily linear)
• Avoid minor issues, which might be
embarrassing; refer to them generically if
necessary e.g. ‘be careful with proofreading’
rather than ‘there’s a typo here’
9. Guidelines / Tips
for Creating the Screencast
• Introduce how the screencast will progress and how the student can
use it
• Provide an overview of the main topics to be covered
• If you open with positives, move quickly on to improvement areas to
avoid student frustration and optimize time in the screencast
• Use and adapt intonation, word choice and pace to match audience
(particularly international students)
• Encourage and motivate students and build a sense of connection
• Review what has been covered at the end
• Do not mention the student’s name ????
• Do not present a ‘scripted’ feedback (Armellini, 2012)
• Return screencasts via a Virtual Learning Environment for security
11. References
Armellini, A. (2012), Personal Communication at the Higher Education Academy Workshop, A Personal Voice? The Whys and Hows of Effective Audio
Feedback. Leicester University 29 June 2012.
Bailey, R. (2009), ‘Undergraduate students' perceptions of the role and utility of written assessment feedback’, Journal of Learning Development in
Higher Education, Vol.1. Available from: http://www.aldinhe.ac.uk [Electronically accessed: 24 January, 2012].
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C. (1987), Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chanock, K. (2000), ‘Comments on essays; do students understand what tutors write?’ Teaching in Higher Education, Vol.5, No.1, pp.95-105.
Daft, R. L. and Lengel, R. H. (1984), ‘Information richness: a new approach to managerial behaviour and organization design’, Research in
Organizational Behaviour, Vol.6, pp.191-233.
Edwards, K. (2011), ‘Action research towards developing guidelines for optimising audio-visual feedback on essays in Higher Education’. Unpublished
manuscript submitted as part of a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. Walford and North Shropshire College and Staffordshire University.
Edwards, K., Dujardin, A-F. and Williams, N. (2012), ‘Screencast feedback for essays on a distance learning MA in Professional Communication’,
Journal of Academic Writing, Vol.2, No.1. Available from: http://e-learning.coventry.ac.uk/ojs/index.php/joaw/article/view/62/105
[Electronically accessed: 26 February, 2013.]
Gossman, P. (2012), ‘Giving feedback to improve student performance’, Glyndŵr University Workshop.
Hughes, G. (2009), ‘Social software: new opportunities for challenging social inequalities in learning?’ Learning, Media and Technology, Vol.34, No.4,
pp.291-305.
Lea, M. and Street, B. (1998), ‘Student Writing in Higher Education: an Academic Literacies Approach’, Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 23, No.2,
pp.157–172.
Lunt, T. and Curran, J. (2010), ‘'Are you listening please?' The advantages of electronic audio feedback compared to written feedback’, Assessment
and Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol.35, No.7, pp.759-769.
Mackiewicz, J. and Riley, K. (2003), ‘The Technical Editor as Diplomat: Linguistic Strategies for Balancing Clarity and Politeness’, Technical
Communication, Vol. 50 No.1, pp.83–94.
Middleton, A. (2011), JISC Webinar: Using a screencast to provide feedback. Available from:
http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/surgery/session/2011-02-09 [Accessed 4 April 2011].
Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (2006), ‘Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education
Section 6 Assessment of Students. Available from: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeOfPractice/default.asp [Electronically
accessed: 10 February, 2010.]
Värlander, S. (2008), ‘The role of students' emotions in formal feedback situations’, Teaching in Higher Education, Vol.13, No.2, pp.145–156.
