Feedback Information Is Not Enough: A Cross-Cultural Exploration of Mathematics Teachers’ Feedback Practices Reveals the Need for More Formative Feedback

• In Event: Roundtable Session 46
  In Roundtable Session: Looking at the Formative and Summative Assessment Practices of Classroom Teachers

Abstract

This paper reports on a cross-cultural exploration of teachers’ formative assessment practices in secondary mathematics classrooms in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Los Angeles, California. Globally, heightened pressures to increase student achievement on high-stakes tests have turned many scholars and practitioners to formative assessment, the core of which lies in Feedback. Through a sociocultural lens, the analysis highlighted how teachers' practices of feedback are influenced by their beliefs, context and the subject culture of mathematics. This paper will build upon previous research by reporting findings within the following three avenues of feedback: teacher-to-student feedback, student-to-student and student-to-teacher, the last two of which are under-represented in assessment research.

Authors

• Whitney Elaine Wall Bortz, Queen's University - Belfast

• Jannette Elwood, Queen's University - Belfast