Quality Assurance in Education

A report examining the impact of feedback from soldiers undertaking the Advanced Apprenticeship with recommendations for professional development of best practice.

Before examining the impact of feedback and how it can be used for improving methods of best practice, it is important to clearly understand what feedback is; education without a teacher is like a body without a soul, a skeleton without flesh and blood, a shadow without substance. Similarly, teaching without feedback is unimaginable.

Defined as “Information about reactions to a product, a person's performance of a task, etc. which is used as a basis for improvement” by the Oxford dictionary. Valarie Shute (2008) likens feedback to “that of a good murder in that a learner needs motive (a desire for it), opportunity (can do something with it) and means (the ability to use it effectively)”. She does however, argue that “even with motive, means and opportunity, there is still a massive difference in the effect that feedback has on performance. In addition to this, feedback in the context teacher education has been defined as information that is presented to an individual following a performance that reflects upon the adequacy, quantity, or quality of the teaching performance (Tower 1999).

Feedback provides information about the truth or falsehood of human behaviour, as well as providing teachers with a means to improve their own teaching performance and correct their errors (Paccapaniccia 2002; Peker, 1992). Taking these interpretations into account, it can be said that feedback serves as a door for teachers to open in order to obtain a variety of data about themselves through their own eyes and through the eyes of others. In essence, feedback involves making the experiences and actions of teachers visible and comprehensible, with this in mind; the use of effective feedback is an integral part of a teacher’s ability to reflect on his or her experiences. According to Silver (2002), teachers have to be provided with stimulus for them to deliver a satisfactory work. Research suggests that teacher evaluation and providing feedback is primarily a task of a leader (Davis et al., 2002), the research further suggests that teachers were found to ‘crave’ for reassurance, which for them could only come from their managers. Hence the manager has to support teacher learning rather than control it

According to Danielson & McGreal (2002), teaching performance evaluation is a continuous process of learning, goal achievement, communication and assessment, as well as a means of becoming a professional learner. In this respect, feedback as a teaching performance evaluation practice has been suggested that as a systematic means for promoting learning and growth; this can be seen in Gould and Roffy-Barentsen’s six stage model^[1]. Gould and Roffy-Barentsen (2016; 260) stress that “giving constructive and helpful feedback is at the heart of successful assessment” they further suggest that “learners will be more motivated to improve when they are given clear and honest feedback about strengths and areas for development”.