ESPLAT 2025 conference: Scientific thinking in challenging times

Introduction

Feedback is one of the greatest influencing factors of good teaching (d=0.73, Hattie, 2009, 2012) and can be summarized in four aspects: Teachers give students learning/performance feedback (1), students learn to obtain feedback, interpret it depending on the context and implement it in a meaningful way (2), learners give teachers feedback on work processes, tasks, difficulties, etc. (3), teachers learn to actively obtain feedback, respond to it appropriately and adapt methods and behavior to the needs of the learners (4). Aspect 3 has a particularly positive effect on student performance (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). A comprehensive document analysis of module handbooks and spiral curricula revealed that the discussion of feedback in teacher training in Cologne is inadequate and exclusively with regard to aspect 1. The dissertation project is intended as a pilot project to integrate the concept of an effective feedback culture into the school-based part of teacher training.

Methodology

A quasi-experimental design (pre, post, follow-up) will be used to investigate how the implementation of the topic area of effective feedback culture according to Hattie & Clarke (2019) and Brooks (2019) in the trainee teacher training program (Referendariat) affects the feedback culture of trainee teachers in their self-guided teaching. To this end, seminar content is currently being designed and suitable vignettes are being developed which, in addition to testing the trainee teachers' practical skills regarding effective feedback, also ask about the students' perception of the feedback culture with their trainee teacher.

Outlook

As the survey is still in the planning phase, no results can be discussed at this stage. The intervention is to run from October 2025 to January 2026.