Recursive feedback and formative assessment (teacher-, peer- and self-assessments) can be powerful to improve learning. One example is that digital tools provide ways to organize projects in more recursive fashion. With online portfolio’s it becomes easier to create iterative projects over longer periods, to allow students to learn from earlier versions and continually improve their products. Furthermore, it enables students to work together on projects (in the cloud) or improve projects of other study groups (Warschauwer, 2011).

Another way that technology can support recursive feedback, is this app. This app is mainly used for practicing soft skills, for example in customer service. Students might receive a video of an annoyed costumer. The students video-record their own reaction. Next, they can watch themselves to self-assess, or ask your teacher to assess. Watch this video to learn more about it.

I wondered how recursive feedback and formative assessments might affect students dealing with anxiety. Might an anxious student be discouraged by recursive feedback? I can imagine they might be more prone to remember negative feedback. When having feedback more often, perhaps on unfinished products, it might be stressful?

I searched online for a little while, and mainly found studies on corrective feedback in learning a second language. For example a study of YastÕbaúa and YastÕbaúa (2015) stating that their research indicated that the use of peer feedback in writing classes reduced students writing anxiety in terms of cognitive, somatic, and avoidance anxiety.

Another study of Molin, Cabus, healermans et al. (2019) suggests that formative assessments significantly reduce anxiety in physics and improve academic performance in physics in comparison with traditional teaching. Formative assessments made students feel more at ease.

My first impressions are that formative and recursive feedback seem to actually reduce anxiety. Although some research seems to suggest that students with anxiety seem more anxious in self-assessment compared with peer-assessment.

If you have ideas of more information about his, I would be interested!

References

Warschauwer, M.(2011). Learning in the Cloud How (and Why) to transform schools with digital media. Teachers College Press. ISBN 0807770841, 9780807770849.

Gülúah ÇÕnar YastÕbaúa and Ahmet Erdost YastÕbaúa (2015). The Effect of Peer Feedback on Writing Anxiety in Turkish EFL (English as a Foreign Language). Published in Elsevier.

Molin, F., Cabus, S., Haelermans, C. et al.(2019). Toward Reducing Anxiety and Increasing Performance in Physics Education: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment. Res Sci Educ.