How Can Personalised Feedback in Assignments Help Address Gender Balance in Computing Education?

Authors

Alina Berry, Technological University DublinFollow

Files

Publisher

Technological University Dublin

Description

Personalised feedback is frequently used in computing assessments in higher education. Research has shown that personalised feedback positively influences persistence in computer science. Computing and related disciplines are known to show relatively low retention rates. This includes female students, who are strongly underrepresented in computing disciplines, so they can be considered as a particularly important group for retention-driven initiatives. Female science students are more likely to act upon feedback, and personalised feedback has increased intentions to persist among female top performing students in computing. Hence, providing personalised feedback can be considered as a promising gender initiative that has a potential to enhance gender balance in computing education. It is one of the initiatives (actions) of TechMate, the toolkit developed at TU Dublin to help address the issue of gender imbalance on third level. This poster presents a study that has an aim to get an understanding on how personalised feedback is provided in technical modules at TU Dublin, what are students’ opinions about it, and how it possibly affects female students. The study comprises of a series of interviews with lecturers, followed by surveying students of all genders and interviewing some of the female students in relevant modules.

Publication Date

2024

Keywords

Feedback, gender balance, personalised feedback, TechMate, computer science

Disciplines

Computer Engineering | Education

Supervisors

Prof. Sarah Jane Delany (TU Dublin), Dr. Susan McKeever (TU Dublin), Prof. Brenda Murphy (SETU Waterford).

DOI

https://doi.org/10.21427/zn4y-tj84

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Berry, A. (2024). How Can Personalised Feedback in Assignments Help Address Gender Balance in Computing Education? Faculty of Computing, Digital and Data Teaching and Research Showcase 20th June, Dublin.