Online Feedback to Students Studying Taxation and Business Law – How Does It Rate?

Abstract

It is widely accepted that students value timely and targeted feedback on their assessment tasks; however, this is also the area where they are most critical when it comes to their teaching and learning evaluations. These criticisms can be grouped into three categories: first, where feedback is not easily accessible to the student; second, where the feedback is not targeted to the particular problems the student has demonstrated; and finally, where the feedback is hard for the student to understand (this may be due to the marker’s poor expression, the student’s difficulty in understanding, or a combination of both). In 2006, Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick set out seven principles of good feedback practice in their research based on their experiences as part of the Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde, Scotland. Those principles are based on a synthesis of the literature on assessment and feedback and provide a good model on which to benchmark feedback practices.

This article explains the use of online assessment and feedback in the School of Taxation and Business Law at UNSW, Australia, when teaching taxation law and business law to undergraduate and postgraduate students. It analyses the use of these assessment and feedback tools using educational theory and survey feedback from students and academics. In 2014 and 2015, students at UNSW were surveyed and their responses are evaluated in the article. Academics at UNSW were also surveyed and their responses are analysed. The article concludes with an evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of online assessment and feedback.

Keywords: Tax; Business Law; Education; Online assessment