Pre-service science teachers’ opinions about using the feedback process in the preparation of teaching materials

Introduction

Rapid and innovative changes in science and technology in the twenty-first century have both stimulated mandatory changes and improvements in the education system and generated significant alterations in individuals’ and societies’ perspectives to and expectations from education (Oğuz, 1993). Quality in education, in other words, a qualified education that suits the conditions of our time requires a long time to be established. It also makes it necessary that research in a number of study areas is maintained using standard methods. These studies are necessary in all stages of training, and they may both solve instructional problems and provide continuous improvement. One of the most important ways to increase the quality of education is assessment, which is the control mechanism of education (Taras 2002, 2003). Assessment is the most important element that shows the achievement level of educational goals and the success of all the elements in the learning process which are students, teachers, teaching methods and teaching materials. There are two important types of assessment in use. These are summative assessment, which is based on assessing what students have learned at the end of course units, and formative assessment, which is based on determining students’ learning needs (OECD, 2005; Liu and Carless, 2006). Recent studies have demonstrated the inadequacy of the summative assessment, which has been widely used for a long time, and requires students to meet predetermined standards to earn their diplomas (OECD/CERI, 2008). Formative assessment is an alternative that makes students responsible for their failure in continuing their education. Formative assessment is based on the principle of determining students’ learning needs and teaching them with their needs in mind. According to Shute (2007), the main goal of formative feedback is to strengthen students’ knowledge, specific skills, understanding in certain contents, and general skills such as problem solving. These aspects of formative assessment will improve the quality of learning (Higgins, Hartley and Skelton, 2002).

Feedback is a part of formative assessment. It is also the focus of this study. Feedback is a strong mechanism for increasing motivation and learning (Erişen, 1997; Retna and Cavana, 2009). Feedback informs students about the strengths and weaknesses of their performances, and thus makes their future studies more productive (Weaver, 2006; Brown, 2004). Gibbs and Simpson (2004) claim that feedback is important when it is understandable, timely and is delivered in a style that stimulates students. Feedback is a type of advice that is given to improve current and future studies. It may also be described as a justified explanation of students’ scores that focuses on learning (Carless, 2006; Gibbs and Simpson, 2003).

According to Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (2006), proper feedback provides these benefits:

It helps describe a successful performance with the assistance ofgoals, criteria and standards.
It facilitates the development of self-assessment for learning.
It gives high-quality information to students about their own learning.
It improves communication between peers and between teachers and students.
It enhances positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem.
It gives opportunities to fill in the gap between current and desired performances.
It provides teachers with the information that will help them plan and design their instruction.

Borophy argued that feedback should help students evaluate their progress toward goals, understand their mistakes and correct their errors (Demir and Bedir, 2005). In an environment where feedback is not used, students may not understand what is expected of them and not perform as expected. If students fail to perform as expected, providing explanatory information about deficiencies and errors, or feedback, will increase their ability to do so. It can also increase their interest and motivation since it will enable them to learn and supervise their learning (Sönmez, 2007; Tok, 2007).

Many studies have shown that feedback has a strong effect on the learning process (Black and William, 1998; Hattie and Timperley, 2007). Jones (2005) found that it is necessary to provide feedback to learners to make progress in a specific activity. He showed that being given feedback to improve their current tasks was very valuable for learners, and that they perceived it as an excellent motivator. Weaver (2006) found that students believed that feedback was valuable, and that their teachers’ comments were very beneficial. However, students also said that feedback from their teachers would not contribute to their learning when it was too general and unclear, provided little guidance, focused on negative behavior and was not associated with evaluation criteria. Demiraslan and Çevik (2014) found that students who received and provided feedback tended to have positive perceptions of it. The students said that the process of receiving and providing feedback was beneficial, effective and productive. They also said that they had the opportunity to recognize and eliminate their mistakes and deficiencies, and acquire new perspectives.

Burnett and Mandel (2010) studied praise and feedback in primary school classes, and found that teachers mainly praised their students without any goals, while it is much more beneficial for students to receive feedback about their abilities or efforts to accomplish a task. Another study of the effect of feedback used open-ended questions to prove that instant feedback has a significant positive effect. The participants stated that their responses based on feedback, which they considered a second chance, were better than their first responses to open-ended questions (Attali and Powers, 2008). Attali, Laitusis and Stone (2015) determined that feedback based on open-ended questions, rather than the multiple-choice questions, was more beneficial. This was explained by the concept of responsibility that requires effort, and it was found that open-ended questions forced students to think more.

The results of a study by Higgins, Hartley and Skelton (2002) indicated that students read their teachers’ comments and valued them. They found that the students were internally motivated despite being aware of the importance of scoring, and they tried to learn from feedback that could help them to understand the subject comprehensively. The same students said that an environment where feedback was only given as approval of correct answers and achievement scores were used as external motivation was not suitable at all. Liu and Carless (2006) demonstrated that a majority of the instructors and students in higher education did not adopt the peer assessment methods that use scoring. The researchers suggested using strategies which required peer feedback in courses so that scoring is not the primary concern. Another study of higher education found that students cannot make progress without sufficient personal feedback about their learning since they are unable to determine how much progress they had made towards achieving their learning goals and knowledge and skill acquisitions (Bose and Rengel, 2009). An empirical study of formative assessment embedded in the curriculum and the effect of the classroom process quality examined floating and sinking, two subjects in the science curriculum, and found that formative assessment embedded in the curriculum and the classroom process qualityencouraged students to learn (Decristan et al., 2015). Finally, Heritage (2007) referred to a very important issue that coincides with the aim of this study. According to Heritage (2007), it is necessary to revise teacher training programs in order to make formative assessment a complementary part of professional teaching. All pre-service teachers should graduate from the programs that include the information about the evaluation of students’ learning. Teacher trainer should have pre-service teachers gain in-class experience to learn the information and skills which combine instruction and evaluation in framework of teacher training programs.

The positive effects of feedback on learning have already been proved by many studies. This study used feedback in the training of pre-service teachers. Practical courses are very important in teachers’ professional training. Teachers who learn knowledge and skills by personal experience can increase the quality of their teaching. Practical studies in teacher training should be evaluated for their appropriateness. The connection between theory and practice is not established successfully in practical studies that do not include feedback. Thus, many performances are thought to be adequate, but are in fact insufficient. Since theory and practice are required study areas in teacher training, pre-service teachers’ professional formation is thus greatly enhanced by face-to-face and written feedback. They can use the feedback process they see in their undergraduate education in their professional lives to enhance the quality of their instruction. This study aimed to examine pre-service science teachers’ opinions about the use of feedback in the preparation of course materials. In context of the research problems, the study aimed to derive information about both the use of feedback in teacher training and the generalizability of feedback in formal education by tackling pre-service teachers’ opinions about the use of feedback. The researcher believes that the study results will contribute to studies of the enhancement of quality standards in teacher training.

Here are the research problems:

What do pre-service teachers think about the use of feedback in material preparation process regarding its “contribution to their learning”?
What do pre-service teachers think about the use of feedback in material preparation process regarding its “advantages”?
What do pre-service teachers think about the use of feedback in material preparation process regarding its “disadvantages”?
What do pre-service teachers think about the use of feedback in material preparation process regarding its “preferring to use in professional life”?