Digitally recorded assessment feedback in a secondary school context: student engagement, perception and impact

Digital recordings can be an efficient method of providing feedback comments to students; however, the vast majority of empirical studies have focused on tertiary contexts. In response, this article presents a mixed-methods survey study of secondary students’ engagement, preferences and perceived impact of digitally recorded feedback. Participants were 260 secondary students who had recently received at least one digital recording offering assessment feedback comments. Matching survey data from 86 tertiary students are also included as a point of comparison. Overall, the digital recordings were well received by secondary students, and were generally thought to have greater impact than text-based feedback. However, secondary students were less positive than tertiary students with regard to their perceptions of preference and impact of recorded feedback over text-based feedback. The article concludes that digitally recorded feedback should be adopted in secondary schools and offers suggestions to obtain the best outcomes for students.