The professional development of teachers has a definite impact on the improvement of the entire
educationalsystem (OECD, 2018; Darling-Hammond, 2017). Forthisreason, the main international
organizations – OECD (2013 ), European Commission (2012 ) – ask countries to establish
feedback and accountability procedures for in-service training (ITT), for the ‘
process by
which teachers engage in further education or training to refresh or upgrade their professional
knowledge, skills and practices in the course of their employment’ (UNESCO, 2019). Researchers
state that here are numerous factors to be considered in carrying out this work: the type and quality
of training, school climate, students’ skills, knowledge domain, etc. (Lipowsky & Rzejak, 2015).
After a brief presentation of howthe mostrecentsystematic reviews on the topic have been conducted
(Filges et al, 2019; Egert et al, 2018; Kalinowski et al., 2019), this article presents the results of a study
on the terms and constructs in use in the context of the researches into in-service teacher/continuing
professional training, impact/effect, and programs/instructions. The data and information collected
offer a comparative analysis (Esser & Hanitzsch, 2012), based on systematic reviews (Polanin et al.,
2019) and a meta-analysis, useful for setting up further meta-analytical investigations on the topic
especially in terms of the disambiguation of terms and the narrowing of the field.
The training of in-service teachers in many countries has been made compulsory and structural
and is conceived as an opportunity for growth and professional development for the entire school
community, and a strategic and functional logic forimproving the quality of the schoolsystem (Perla,
2019).
However, ministries of education do not yet have a univocal model and shared procedures
capable of describing and analysing the impact that the training provided has in the terms set out
in the European Commission (2020): output – results achieved immediately, i.e. increase in skillsfocus subject to training; outcome – wider benefits for involved teachers – improvement of teaching
practices of teachers involved in training; outreach – effects on the institutional and social context of
the school where and of the territory within which the teachers involved in the training.
This research was conducted to examine students’ perceptions of their teachers’ dominant characteristics – the feedback they provide, how feedback is related to students’ achievements and learning motivation level, and how all of these relate to classroom climate. It was conducted with 2,599 elementary school, junior high and high school students. Data were collected by means of structured questionnaires. The results were significant: learners attribute much importance to the feedback they give their teachers and they evaluate them positively regarding pedagogy and didactics. In addition, learners reported an average or slightly above average score for the general classroom climate. Girls reported more positive perceptions than boys at all age levels. Elementary school students reported more positive perceptions than junior high and high school students. Mathematics was more highly rated than other disciplines. Female teachers were preferred to male teachers and younger teachers to older teachers. Positive teacher evaluations resulted in a higher motivation level and improvement in learning achievements, as well as a positive perception of classroom climate, but teacher feedback and motivation were found to be the most important factors in predicting learning achievement.
Abstract
Active learning increases the role of organized and systematic feedback between all the stakeholders
of modern education. Although this factor has been given considerable attention in the literature,
the study of written feedback from students and the subsequent response of the teacher deserves
closer investigation. This research reveals – on the basis of feedback forms analysis – the level of
development of students’ competences of self-regulation, reflection and evaluation. Zimmerman’s
model of self-regulated learning was used as theoretical premises of the paper; qualitative analysis
was employed for data interpretation. The study helped to identify a range of problematic areas in
students’ self-regulatory processes in learning including,
• inconsistencies in the evaluation of performance aspects and the performance in total;
• organisational issues concerning the use of the feedback form;
• underdeveloped reflective skills (difficulty in analysing the educational experience critically and
understanding how to use it in the future performance).
The article discusses ways to address these problems on the part of the teacher. The findings show
the importance of learners’ feedback for the teacher as an indicator of their metacognitive skills
development. Close attention must be paid to students’ responses, their “decoding” and acting upon
them help establish dialogic relations between the participants of the educational process, thus,
increasing the quality of educational experience.