Pedagogic Audits and Feedback

• In Event: Envisioning a coherent evidence ecosystem for education in a digital society: global and local evidence synthesis, mobilisation, and generation.

Proposal

Sub-Saharan Africa faces a persistent learning crisis, characterized by alarmingly low educational outcomes despite significant increases in school enrollment. This crisis is acutely evident in the Lake Chad Basin region, which exhibits some of the world's lowest learning levels. Complex factors, including poverty, conflict, epidemics, inequalities, and poor governance, contribute to this challenging educational landscape. While teachers play a critical role in student success, they often lack the necessary skills and support to implement effective teaching practices. Traditional Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programs have often struggled to bridge this gap, highlighting the need for innovative approaches.
Concurrently, a wealth of evidence-based teaching and learning strategies exists, but their implementation in classrooms remains limited. Teachers encounter barriers such as limited access to research findings, complex statistical jargon, the ingrained nature of routine teaching methods, and hesitancy toward adopting new approaches. This disconnect between available evidence and its practical application underscores the urgent need for effective knowledge translation, mobilization and implementation strategies.
Pedagogic Audits and Feedback (PAF) emerges as a promising solution. It is a quality improvement process that systematically reviews teaching practices against explicit evidence-based criteria, incorporating behavioral science and evidence implementation principles. Through structured feedback and support within a pedagogy fellowship and leadership program, PAF aims to empower teachers, foster behavior change, and enhance teaching and learning outcomes.
This mixed-methods pilot study explored the feasibility, acceptability, and potential promise of impact of PAF in the Lake Chad Basin region, encompassing Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria. It examined how PAF could bolster Teacher Professional Development and identified key barriers and facilitators to successful implementation. The study focused on improving teachers' provision of effective feedback to students, a crucial aspect of evidence-based teaching.
The intervention focused on 80 teachers from 40 nursery and primary schools in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. The PAF process involved training pedagogic fellows, conducting baseline audits using adapted evidence-based tools from the health sector, implementing strategies to address non-compliance, and performing follow-up audits.
Baseline audits revealed below-average compliance with evidence-based practices (37% regional average). Following the intervention, compliance significantly improved at midline (63%) and endline (77%). All evidence-based categories showed increased compliance, with the most notable improvement in providing verbal feedback.
Qualitative data highlighted barriers such as limited access to evidence, large class sizes, and lack of didactic materials. Strategies to overcome these challenges included teacher training, providing condensed teaching materials, and involving education stakeholders.
The intervention was widely accepted by education stakeholders. Teachers expressed appreciation for the practical guidance and opportunities for collaboration.
The study concluded that PAF is a feasible and acceptable intervention in the Lake Chad Basin region. It effectively supports TPD by improving teacher compliance with evidence-based practices. Key recommendations include addressing identified barriers, ensuring ongoing training and support, and engaging education stakeholders to facilitate the scaling of this intervention.

Author

• Rigobert Hanny Pambe Miong, eBASE Africa