VIRTUAL: Applying Education
Abstract
High-quality feedback plays a major role among the determinants of students’ achievement and satisfaction in higher education. Nevertheless, only a minority of students engage with it. Therefore, in the last decade, much emphasis has been placed on building students’ feedback literacy (SFL) as a key to unlocking students’ engagement and satisfaction with it. In design disciplines, feedback is not just given at the end of the creative process but part of it. It takes place during weekly one-to-one tutorials, group tutorials, peer reviews, and interim and final crits. This range of feedback experiences may facilitate a more active role of the student in engaging with it. This study aims to investigate the feedback literacy of Architectural Technology (AT) students to propose recommendations for overcoming the barriers to students’ uptake of feedback in studio-based modules. For this purpose, the research used the University of Brighton as case study and the AT undergraduate students as witness population, comparing the findings with those obtained from a small sample of Architecture students. Due to the limited sample size, the approach taken for the analysis of results is prevalently qualitative. Despite the small population investigated, the cross-comparison with the Architecture course and the use of multiple units of analysis facilitates the triangulation of findings, which enhances the validity and reliability of the results generated. This study contributes an insight into the AT students’ experiences with feedback in studio-based modules and proposes some recommendations to overcome the barriers to students’ engagement with it.
Michela Menconi works as a lecturer at the University of Brighton (UK) where she teaches Architectural Technology and Design for the undergraduate students and Sustainable Construction for Master students. In Brighton, she got her PhD on Energy Retrofit Measures for Heritage Dwellings. She has a MSc in Architecture, taken in Florence (Italy) where she specialised in Buildings Conservation and Restoration Technology. She worked in Italy, Germany and the UK on a range of refurbishment and new projects.