584779-Bijlsma

65 4 single lesson. Because the feedback is provided to the teacher right after the lesson, the link between the actual actions by the teacher in the classroom and the student feedback is clearer than in the case of feedback on teacher behaviour in general (across many lessons; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). Immediate feedback has been found to be more effective than when it is postponed (Timmers & Veldkamp, 2011). Teachers might therefore be able to work better on improving the quality of their teaching. To our knowledge so far, little research has been done on the effects of using structured student feedback on teaching quality, especially when it is obtained by teachers in an immediate, direct way, and linked to a specif ic lesson (instead of being about the general quality of a teacher’s teaching). In the current study, students’ perceptions of one lesson were measured and the feedback was presented to teachers to inform them on the strengths and weaknesses of their lessons. It was hoped that the feedback would promote teachers’ professional reflection on the quality of their teaching, given that reflection does not happen spontaneously (Driessen et al., 2008; Ertmer & Newby, 1996), and that teachers would attempt to improve their teaching. The following research questions were formulated: Does smartphoneassisted student feedback promote teachers’ insight into where their lessons can be improved, their professional reflection, and their improvement-oriented actions? And does it affect the quality of their teaching? 4.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 4.2.1 Student feedback for improving teaching Based on more than a hundred years of feedback research, we know that feedback can have a strong performance-enhancing effect (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). Feedback is conceptualized as information provided by an agent (e.g., teacher, student, peer, self, experience) regarding elements of one’s performance or understanding (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). The feedback a recipient receives can support changing their ways of acting and improving their performance. As stated above, teachers do not receive much feedback on their professional functioning, and therefore, student perceptions of teaching quality can function as a valuable source of feedback for teachers (Muijs, 2006; Peterson et al., 2000). But how can student feedback help improve the quality of teachers’ instruction? This was explained by Fraser (2007), who studied the use of student feedback by teachers for improving their teaching. The feedback

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjY0ODMw