Connecting feedback, classroom research and Didaktik perspectives

Abstract

Feedback is frequently highlighted as a key contributor to students’ learning. This literature study argues that the focus of some of the feedback literature appears too narrow to understand what is going on in a classroom. Parts of the feedback literature show the relationship between feedback and learning approximate to a process-product model that predicts learning outcomes. The authors claim that feedback has to be studied in a classroom context and as a part of the teaching process to become more useful for teachers and pupils. Feedback research is thus discussed in light of other research traditions: Didaktik theory and classroom research in the last three decades. The article is based on a critical reading of feedback literature from a Didaktik perspective in order to enhance the complexity of the feedback concept. Our North-Continental Didaktik perspective focuses the importance of subject matter, the difference between subject matter and meaning, and the relative autonomy of teaching and learning activities. Classroom research from guided reading is employed as an example of how classroom research may contribute to explore classroom reality subject matter-based feedback in a school context.