Engagement with Optional Formative Feedback in a Portfolio-Based Digital Design Module

Abstract

Design skills are considered important in software engineering, and formative feedback may facilitate the learning process and help students master those skills. However, little is known about student usage of and reaction to the feedback and its impact on learning and assessment outcomes. This study explores the effects of optional formative assessment feedback on learners’ performance and engagement by considering LMS interactions, student demographics, personality types, and motivation sources. Forty-five postgraduate students completed an enrolment questionnaire addressing the Big Five personality dimensions, the Situational Motivation Scale and background data. The main methods included monitoring LMS engagement over 10 weeks of teaching and analysing assessment marks to develop student profiles and assess the influence of formative feedback on engagement and performance. The main findings revealed that while formative feedback helped improve marks on portfolio tasks, it did not lead to higher performance overall compared to students who did not receive it. Students seeking feedback engaged more actively with the LMS assessments. Feedback-seeking behaviour was associated with gender, intrinsic motivation, conscientiousness, and extrinsic motivation, although not all associations were significant. The study’s main contributions are in highlighting the impact of formative feedback on performance in linked assessments and in starting to reveal the complex relationship between feedback-seeking behaviour and student characteristics.