The Case of Screencast Feedback: Barriers to the Use of Learning Technology

Abstract

Screen capture tools are increasingly used to enhance learning in higher education, and the use of such tools to provide feedback to students has been enthusiastically supported by some, with early studies indicating its potential in terms of richness, in-depth explanation and its personal style for building tutor-student relationships. Despite this support, however, and the availability of increasingly user friendly software, to date there does not seem to have been a major take up of the screencast delivery mode of feedback in Higher Education. This article summarises earlier research and presents findings from a small-scale interview study of academic staff in a northern UK university. These findings relate to key barriers to technology uptake, principally the time to learn issue, along with institutional constraints, but they also point to factors relating to the nature of feedback itself within a dominant research-led university culture.