Feedback was identified as a key factor in improving students’ learning. A recent article published in Frontiers in Psychology found that teachers’ use of feedback varied in different grades and had different relationships with students’ self-regulated learning (SRL).
This study was conducted in a secondary school in Shanghai, China. Students were asked to report how often their teachers used different types of feedback, and were assessed by the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire for their SRL strategies. A total of 1,260 valid questionnaires were collected, of which 430, 460, and 370 were from students of Grades 10, 11, and 12, respectively. The findings showed that:
- Praise was used most frequently by teachers of 10th It was found to have the strongest correlations with students’ SRL strategies across grade levels.
- Criticism was used most frequently by 12th-grade teachers. It only had a weak correlation with SRL strategies regardless of grade levels.
- Directive feedback was provided most frequently by teachers of 12th It was positively correlated with SRL strategies among 11th and 12th graders, but had negative correlations with SRL strategies among 10th graders.
- Scaffolding and verification feedback were provided most frequently by teachers of 10th However, these were found to positively correlate to only some SRL strategies among 10th graders, but were positively correlated with all SRL strategies among 11th graders.
The authors suggested that the findings provided insight for teachers to provide differentiated feedback to students of different grades, in order to promote their self-regulated learning.
Source (Open Access): Guo, W. (2020). Grade-level differences in teacher feedback and students’ self-regulated learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 783. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00783