Abstract
Learners who enter higher education (HE) at the foundational level are susceptible to many challenges that impact their performance, engagement, and progression. Not all students who enter HE at the foundational level will progress and attain their course qualifications. In addition, many university lecturers struggle to give effective support to their students. This study focuses on feedforward teaching approaches that define ways to enhance learning by using advanced organisational strategies to offer relevant supporting concepts and meaningful verbal material. To date, there are insufficient literature reviews on feedforward approaches to facilitate students’ subsequent learning. Providing better academic support for students and a strong foundation for independent learning is the focus of this paper. Therefore, the main contributions of this paper are identifying the key feedforward features and suggesting effective feedforward approaches. This study was undertaken to rigorously implement feedforward approaches that would support groups of students in modules at the foundational entry-level. At the end of module delivery, different students’ data sets were analysed related to the progression rates, standard deviation, and mean. In addition, the student satisfaction questionnaire (module evaluation survey) and feedback survey were also considered for engagement and retention purposes. The outcomes from this exercise suggest that feedforward approaches allow students to increase their overall effort when attempting summative assessments and, thus, improve their performance, engagement, and retention.
Highlights
Passing assessments is a vital goal for most students throughout their studies; how‐ever, in higher education (HE), early‐stage learners experience a variety of challenges, one of which can be failing to engage with assessment tasks
Our observa‐ tions and statistics [5] show that the majority of students entering the early years of higher education are subject to constraints due to one or more of the following factors [6]: mature students returning to education after a long break, students with weak entry qualifications, time management issues, financial pressures, diverse cultural backgrounds, language barri‐ ers, and personal issues
The first evaluation tool used in this study is the performance of Computing and Engineering students for the modules taken in the AY 2018–2019
Summary
Ever, in higher education (HE), early‐stage learners experience a variety of challenges, one of which can be failing to engage with assessment tasks. This discourages students and lowers confidence, preventing them from fully understanding how to maximise their results [1]. Students prefer to be guided and receive feedback on their performance while working on their assessment tasks [2]. This type of feedback is referred to as “feedfor‐ ward”: feedback or comments provided by academics to their students on their assess‐ ment drafts prior to submission (feedback before submitting tasks). Our observa‐ tions and statistics [5] show that the majority of students entering the early (foundational) years of higher education are subject to constraints due to one or more of the following factors [6]: mature students returning to education after a long break, students with weak entry qualifications, time management issues (juggling education with employment and family commitments), financial pressures, diverse cultural backgrounds, language barri‐ ers, and personal issues (e.g., family problems and lack of confidence)
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