More than words: using digital cues to enhance student perceptions of online assignment feedback

Providing online written feedback for assignments permits the inclusion of digital cues (e.g., emoticons, profilepictures, and informal tone of language) which may improve student perceptions of both feedback and instructor.Using a between groups experimental design, we conducted a series of 2 (Emoticons present/absent) x 2 (Profilepictures present/absent) x 2 (Language formal/informal) ANCOVAs to explore the effect of each cue on studentperceptions of feedback and of the instructor (N = 188 university undergraduates). Including emoticonsenhanced student perceptions of social presence within the feedback, as well as student ratings of instructorproficiency, accessibility, and personal characteristics. Language formality had no main effect, but interactedwith emoticons, such that instructors were perceived to be most proficient when emoticons were embeddedwithin formal language feedback. Our findings suggest that including emoticons in written feedback mayimprove student perceptions of instructors and feedback, without impacting on the integrity of feedback