Bitesize Research: The Impact of Feedback on Student Progress

I hope everyone is well. I wanted to share with you a study published by the British Journal of Educational Psychology in February 2019 by Skipper and Douglas.  

Objectives of study: Historically, lots of research has been conducted to show the impact of feedback on student progress. However, this study looked at the unchartered area of how teachers choose to deliver feedback, and whether they choose to deliver feedback based on student ability or on student effort. This study was conducted with 169 teachers, whereby the teachers were given 6 scenarios to read, each describing a lesson where the teacher asked a particular student to complete a task. In three of the scenarios, the student succeeded, while in the other three, the student failed. After reading each scenario, teachers were asked to rate their perception of task difficulty, the likelihood of giving feedback and the likelihood of giving feedback based on student ability or student effort. Teachers were also asked to complete a survey measuring the extent to which they believed student abilities and intelligence are fixed. 

Summary of findings: 

• Teachers were more likely to provide feedback following success than failure

• Following students’ failure, teachers were more likely to provide feedback based on student effort rather than on student ability 

• When the tasks were perceived to be challenging, teachers were more likely to provide feedback

• Teachers who believed more in the view that intelligence was fixed reported that they would give both more praise based on student effort and ability, but following failure gave more effort feedback

How does this impact me and my practice?: Some reflections questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• Does this resonate with you and how you give feedback?

• How does this link to our understanding of growth mindset?

• How are we using feedback to praise students? What impact might it have on student wellbeing and on student progress?

• How does this impact our understanding of setting challenging work?

If anyone would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.