Errors and feedback > Student errors

Question 3
What are the approaches to detecting and feeding back on students’ errors?

• Tim Lowe
• Ian Jones
• Niclas Larson
• Indunil Sikurajapathi
• Karen Henderson

What motivates this question?

We need to know where and when to programme targetted feedback to student responses.

It may be difficult to tell whether a wrong student answer is due to misinterpretation of the question or misscalcualtion. It would be interesting to identify those errrors that persist across different variants of the same question.

The answer is likely to be different in different subject areas. Thus the answer will probably be a catalogue of the typical misconceptions in certain areas of mathematical knowledge. Further analysis might reveal the tacit models students have that lead to those errors.

What might an answer look like?

The wording of this question suggests the need for a survey of current theory/practice regarding the detection of errors and how to feedback to them.

This is a research topic being considered by PhD student Indunil Sikurajapathi at UWE Bristol. She is setting up a taxonomy of errors and looking at how the feedback provided can correct student’s misconceptions (if indeed they are misconceptions).

Related questions

• The issue of common errors is related to Q1: What common errors do students make when answering online assessment questions?.

• An answer to Q1: What common errors do students make when answering online assessment questions? may need to precede researching this question.

• See Q1: What common errors do students make when answering online assessment questions? for fleshing out of a similar question by a group at the conference 27.01.21

References

Sikurajapathi, I., Henderson, K., & Gwynllyw, R. (2020). Using e-assessment to address mathematical misconceptions in engineering students. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 10(5), 356-361. https://doi.org/10.18178/ijiet.2020.10.5.1389