The Effect of Feedback from Pupil to Teacher on Assessment for Leaning and Visible Learning: An Ethnographic Case Study in a Community School in England and the Outcome in a State High School in Queensland, Australia

This study shows that there is positive regulatory effect of feedback from pupils to teachers on Assessment for Learning (AfL), classroom proactiveness, and on visible and progressive learning but not on behaviour. This research finding further articulates feedback from pupil to teacher as a paradigm shift from the classical paradigm of feedback from teacher to pupil. Here, the emphasis is geared towards pupils understanding of objectives built from previous knowledge. These are then feedback onto the teachers by the pupils in the form of discrete loops of cues and questions, where they are with their learning. This therefore enables them to move to the next level of understanding, and thus acquired independence, which in turn is reflected by their success in both formative and summative assessments. This study therefore shows that when feedback from pupil to teacher is used in combination with teacher to pupil feedback, AfL is ameliorated and hence, visible and accelerated learning occurs in a gender, nor subject non-dependent manner. 1. Introduction In many schools in England and Australia, pupils who provide feedback to teachers, for instance, by asking relevant questions during lessons and activities, are more proactive in class and learn and progress faster than those who do not provide feedback to teachers [1–4]. Moreover, pupils who effortlessly move to the next or higher attainment levels in these schools, do so frequently when there is a place for a dynamic feedback process—more so from the pupils to the teachers than from the teachers to the pupils [5]. Furthermore, it has been evidenced that such dynamic feedback process from pupils to teachers not only motivates pupils, but also creates a milieu where teaching and learning becomes visible, and progressive learning becomes frequent [6, 7]. Nonetheless, the phenomenon why this is so is still poorly understood. As a consequence, therefore, there are no effective tools, if any, to quantify and/or measure such dynamic feedback process from pupil to teacher [8, 9]. It is imperative therefore to understand this phenomenon and its association with progressive learning. This study therefore aims not only to show how feedback from “pupil to teacher” ameliorates Assessment for Learning (AfL) and hence visible and progressive learning, but also to develop a tool to measure such dynamic feedback process. Such tool, not least may address pupil’s ability to judge and condescend, when and were in their personal learning process is the right juncture and junction to provide cues via feedback to teachers.