Using Unfolding Models to Identify Feedback Strategies for Student Writing
Location
Session 4 Presentations - Literacy Education III
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
Formative assessments are used to identify student strengths and weaknesses, but they frequently do not identify targeted feedback strategies for improving student achievement. This study suggests a non-cumulative process for linking feedback strategies and achievement levels. We propose adapting the concept of Zone of Proximal Development Vygotsky,1978) to identify zones of targeted feedback – the sets of optimal feedback strategies that can be used for improving student writing. The study offers a Hyperbolic Cosine unfolding model (HCM; Andrich & Luo, 1993) as an alternative measurement paradigm to identify zones of targeted feedback. In this study, a focus group of English teachers identified feedback strategies for writing, and a questionnaire was constructed based on their recommendations. Classroom teachers responded to this questionnaire for identifying feedback strategies for a set of essays. The HCM model was used to analyze the data, and to identify recommended feedback strategies for each essay. Recommended feedback strategies were used to define zones of targeted feedback. The results indicate that using an unfolding model to identify zones of targeted feedback is a promising strategy to improve students forward to a higher level of achievement.
Keywords
Feedback strategies, writing assessment, unfolding models
Professional Bio
Ye Yuan, a Ph.D. student in the Quantitative Methodology program, Educational Psychology department at the University of Georgia. She received her M.A. degree in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. After completing her Master's program, she taught 3rd-grade students for one year. Now at the UGA, she works closely with Prof. Engelhard. Her research focuses on educational measurement using the family of IRT models, especially Rasch models and unfolding models.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
yuan, ye; Engelhard, George; Raczynski, Kevin; and Wang, Jue, "Using Unfolding Models to Identify Feedback Strategies for Student Writing" (2021). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 62.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2021/2021/62
Using Unfolding Models to Identify Feedback Strategies for Student Writing
Session 4 Presentations - Literacy Education III
Formative assessments are used to identify student strengths and weaknesses, but they frequently do not identify targeted feedback strategies for improving student achievement. This study suggests a non-cumulative process for linking feedback strategies and achievement levels. We propose adapting the concept of Zone of Proximal Development Vygotsky,1978) to identify zones of targeted feedback – the sets of optimal feedback strategies that can be used for improving student writing. The study offers a Hyperbolic Cosine unfolding model (HCM; Andrich & Luo, 1993) as an alternative measurement paradigm to identify zones of targeted feedback. In this study, a focus group of English teachers identified feedback strategies for writing, and a questionnaire was constructed based on their recommendations. Classroom teachers responded to this questionnaire for identifying feedback strategies for a set of essays. The HCM model was used to analyze the data, and to identify recommended feedback strategies for each essay. Recommended feedback strategies were used to define zones of targeted feedback. The results indicate that using an unfolding model to identify zones of targeted feedback is a promising strategy to improve students forward to a higher level of achievement.
