Gathering Feedback by Means of Student Perceptions Through a Digital Feedback System

• In Event: 44.037 - Achieving the Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity by Evaluation and Research in Schools

Abstract

Research shows that evaluation and feedback can have a strong performance enhancing effect. The same goes for efforts to improve education; teaching and learning will not improve if teachers are not given direct feedback and if they are not able to reflect critically on their practices.
A promising approach to provide teachers with feedback is to obtain students’ perceptions about the teachers’ teaching. A digital feedback system (application for smartphones) is developed to gather feedback by means of student perceptions. Students in this case fill in a short evaluation questionnaire anonymously about the teachers’ behavior, right after a lesson. The questions match with scientifically determined characteristics of effective lessons. Summaries of the responses are provided to teachers. This way, student perceptions could be an important basis for teachers’ reflection on their teaching and, moreover, for the improvement of their performance. Teachers in secondary education do not receive much feedback on the variety of aspects of their functioning. Using students’ perceptions for gathering feedback is considered a relevant and time-effective application in the repertoire of tools to make teachers reflect on their practices and to improve the quality of their teaching.

Authors

• Adrie Visscher, Universiteit Twente

• Bernard P. Veldkamp, Universiteit Twente