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Exploring the Role of Feedback and its Impact within a Digital Badge System from Student Perspectives

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Abstract

In academic settings where digital badges are taking over conventional task formats, educators are faced with the challenge of how to deliver and assess content and skills within badges. Imposing a mastery learning approach, where feedback is key, to a digital badge system may be a potential solution to using digital badges within higher education. As a way to support student learning, Guskey, Journal of Advanced Academics, 19(1), 8–31 (2007) emphasizes the importance of not only frequent feedback but specific feedback. In order to examine how students are using feedback to inform their coursework within a digital badge context, an online survey was designed consisting of open-ended questions about the nature and value of instructional feedback within a digital badge system. Results from the questionnaire indicated three major thematic groups illustrating feedback from the students’ perspective: Importance and Nature of Feedback, Authority over Knowledge and Learning, and Learning for Mastery.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Carolina Aiken, Aiken, SC, USA

    Erin D. Besser

  2. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Timothy J. Newby

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  1. Erin D. Besser
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Correspondence to Erin D. Besser.

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Besser, E.D., Newby, T.J. Exploring the Role of Feedback and its Impact within a Digital Badge System from Student Perspectives. TechTrends 63, 485–495 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-019-00386-2

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