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Formative assessment generates feedback on students' performance, thereby accelerating and improving student learning. Anecdotal evidence gathered by a number of evaluations has hypothesised that audio feedback may be capable of enhancing student learning more than other approaches. In this paper we report on the preliminary findings of a quasi-experimental study employing qualitative techniques for triangulation, conducted to evaluate the efficacy of formative audio feedback on student learning. We focus on the delivery of ‘voice emails' to undergraduate students (n = 24) and evaluate the efficacy of such feedback in formative assessment and ergo students' learning, as well as achieving a better understanding of students' feedback behaviour post-delivery. The results indicate that audio feedback better conforms to existing models of ‘quality' formative feedback, can enhance the student learning experience and can be more efficient in feedback delivery. Despite this, and high levels of feedback re-use by student participants, the audio treatment group underperformed in learning tasks when compared with the control group. Differences between the groups were not statistically significant and analyses of individual and mean learning gains across the treatment group provide little indication of improvements in learning

Formative assessment generates feedback on students' performance, thereby accelerating and improving student learning. Anecdotal evidence gathered by a number of evaluations has hypothesised that audio feedback may be capable of enhancing student learning more than other approaches. In this paper we report on the preliminary findings of a quasi-experimental study employing qualitative techniques for triangulation, conducted to evaluate the efficacy of formative audio feedback on student learning. We focus on the delivery of 'voice emails' to undergraduate students (n = 24) and evaluate the efficacy of such feedback in formative assessment and ergo students' learning, as well as achieving a better understanding of students' feedback behaviour post-delivery. The results indicate that audio feedback better conforms to existing models of 'quality' formative feedback, can enhance the student learning experience and can be more efficient in feedback delivery. Despite this, and high levels of feedback re-use by student participants, the audio treatment group underperformed in learning tasks when compared with the control group. Differences between the groups were not statistically significant and analyses of individual and mean learning gains across the treatment group provide little indication of improvements in learning.

The potential for digital library growth has recently drawn into question the ability of users to navigate large distributed and heterogeneous collections. This column attempts to summarise some of the potential benefits to be derived through the implementation of collection-level descriptions for both user resource discovery and institutional collection management. In particular, the concept of "functional granularity" is introduced and some related issues are briefly explored.

Purpose: The use of e-learning is largely predicated upon the assumption that it can facilitate improvements in student learning and therefore can be more effective than conventional techniques. This assumption has been supported by some in the literature but has been questioned by a continuing body of contrary or indifferent evidence. The purpose of this paper is to improve our theoretical understanding of the variables influencing e-learning effectiveness, the manner in which these variables have been studied to date, and to propose a suitable conceptual model of e-learning effectiveness to aid its evaluation.Design/methodology/approach: The paper revisits and critically reviews major contributions to the e-learning effectiveness literature. Findings:Owing to a variety of issues prevalent in the literature, it is clear that the variables influencing effectiveness are multifarious and few researchers impose adequate controls or factor them into research designs. Drawing on the work of Dewey (1938), Englebart (1962) and Kaplan (2002), a conceptual framework of e-learning effectiveness is proposed. This model maps out the key variables involved in the study of e-learning effectiveness and the interactions between variables.Originality/value: It is anticipated that such a model will assist researchers in developing future evaluative studies which are both sufficiently robust and holistic in design. It is also hypothesised that studies designed using the conceptual model will be more likely to yield results corroborating the ability of e-learning to affect improvements in student learning.Paper type: Conceptual paper/Literature review