Students’ lack of engagement with their assessment feedback and the lack of dialogue and communication for feedback are some of the issues that affect educational institutions. Despite the affordance that mobile technologies could bring in terms of assessment feedback, research in this area is scarce. The main obstacle for research on mobile learning assessment feedback is the lack of a cohesive and unified mobile learning framework. This paper thus presents a Mobile Learning Framework for Assessment Feedback (MLFAF), developed using a design-based research approach. The framework emerged from the observation of, and reflection upon, the different stages of a research project that investigated the use of a mobile web application for summative and formative assessment feedback. MLFAF can be used as a foundation to study the requirements when developing and implementing wide-scale mobile learning initiatives that underpin longitudinal practices, as opposed to short-term practices. The paper also provides design considerations and implementation guidelines for the use of mobile technology in assessment feedback to increase student engagement and foster dialogic feedback communication channels.

Assessment feedback, which is an important factor in student learning development, has been a source of dissatisfaction for many years. The technology used in universities such as Gradebook does not allow the tracking of student engagement with their feedback. In general, engagement is mainly reported via observation or students' self-report. This paper presents results from using a prototype application to track students' engagement with their feedback in three studies (n=218, n=70 and n=148) involving summative and formative assessment feedback. Using digital footprinting data, it was possible to gather detailed information on students' access and engagement with their feedback.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate an area of growing importance that is widely recognised in the literature relating to the issue of how to improve ways that assessments and feedback are provided to students within higher education. This paper reports on a study that aimed to explore the views of both educators (n=70) and students (n=540) on feedback and feed-forward at a UK university. The study also investigated their experience and attitudes to social media applications as a means of enhancing access to feedback within the context of mobile learning. Design/methodology/approach The research approach adopted in this study predominately conforms to a quantitative research design though embeds elements of qualitative research via a “mixed methods” approach. The overall methodology of the paper adheres to an exploratory case study in a higher education environment to identify various issues and approaches that could be addressed or enhanced to aid ways that assessments and feedback are disseminated to students within higher education. Findings Participants’ views were sought in relation to students receiving learning materials, as well as feedback from tutors directly to their smartphones and mobile devices. In addition, the study explored possible reasons for students not wanting to use social media and mobile devices for their learning and feedback. Overall, the results indicated a positive attitude on the part of educators and students to using mobile devices and social media applications for teaching and learning purposes. Research limitations/implications The case study presented in this paper draws on findings from one higher educational institution. Further research is required to determine the generalisability of the findings to allow comparison of the findings to be undertaken within other higher education institutions. Originality/value The originality of the paper is that it provides detailed empirical evidence and findings that provide several important implications in relation to enhancing the student learning experience and providing considerable improvements to the way that feedback is provided that make it more likely that students will take more notice to feedback and act upon it. This in turn enables educators to better plan and manage their teaching and student experience online and through students’ mobile devices. The value of this study is that it explores views of both educators and students, whereas many other previous studies tend to focus on the views of either educators or students.

This paper describes the development of an all-in-one mobile learning platform, to support students' use of their own mobile handheld devices for assessment and feedback. The application incorporates several features that can be found in many other individual applications, into one platform. The features allow students' participation in peer feedback activities; they also enable students to access their feedback, leave comments on their summative feedback, participate in class discussions, take formative assessment in form of quizzes, and create quizzes for their peers. The application is also designed to alleviate tutors' workload issues by providing a group feedback feature with three options. Fostering students' Use My Own Device (UMyOD) attitude using this all-in-one mobile learning application requires tutors' active involvement to make their class more interesting, interactive and engaging, more active than passive, and increase student attention span.

Goal-directed problem-solving labs can lead a student to believe that the most important achievement in a first programming course is to get programs working. This is counter to research indicating that code comprehension is an important developmental step for novice programmers. We observed this in our own CS-0 introductory programming course, and furthermore, that students weren't making the connection between code comprehension in labs and a final examination that required solutions to pencil-and-paper comprehension and writing exercises, where sound understanding of programming concepts is essential. Realising these deficiencies late in our course, we put on three 3-hour optional revision evenings just days before the exam.Based on a mastery learning philosophy, students were expected to work through a bank of around 200 penciland-paper exercises. By comparison with a machine-based hackathon, we called this a Thinkathon. Students completed a pre and post questionnaire about their experience of the Thinkathon. While we find that Thinkathon attendance positively influences final grades, we believe our reflection on the overall experience is of greater value. We report that: respected methods for developing code comprehension may not be enough on their own; novices must exercise their developing skills away from machines; and there are social learning outcomes in programming courses, currently implicit, that we should make explicit.