Abstract

It is now widely accepted that formative assessment improves students’ achievement; however, there is also evidence that teachers encounter a range of issues when they try to implement formative practice inside the classroom (Black & Wiliam, 1998, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012). This study aims to investigate teachers’ interpretations of feedback in terms of theory and practice and explores how this might be informed by their conceptions of learning and their experience of professional learning. This paper draws on a study involving three Year 5 and one Year 4 teacher from three different primary schools in London. The main sources of data comprise of classroom observation and teachers’ interviews. The lessons observed were centered on documenting events in which feedback occurs in an ordinary classroom setting, looking across a range of subjects. A semi-structured interview format was used, Kvale & Brinkmann (2009) to explore the teachers’ interpretation and intentions in the feedback process. Follow up interviews with the teachers were carried out in order to ask them to comment on specific instances informed by the lessons observed. The first round of interviews has been completed. In this paper I mainly focus on data from this stage of the research. It reports on participant teachers’ views on feedback with particular reference to pupil written assignments. Emergent findings illustrate diverse perspectives that arise when teachers describe the complexities involved with specific strategies related to sharing success criteria and marking using written comments. This paper examines what kind of teacher knowledge is involved, as reflected in the teachers’ written comments; and, how their feedback practice relates to their conceptualizations of formative assessment. The implications of this work is intended to help teachers and schools , and those involved in supporting professional learning , in reflecting on classroom assessment practices and specifically strengthening the role of feedback in learning.