Self-regulated learning is becoming more and more important in education. It is a learning method in which pupils set goals, monitor and assess their work by themselves and if necessary, they adapt it according to their needs. Teachers should lead the teaching process as well as provide pupils with learning approaches and with the use of actual learning strategies. In this way, pupils will be given the skills to be actively involved in terms of metacognition, motivation and behaviour. Quality feedback is very important in this regard as it tells pupils what they already know, what they still need to accomplish and how they should reach their goals.
In the theoretical part, self-regulation is defined along with three selected models of self-regulated learning and the characteristics of self-regulated pupils. Furthermore, there is an overview of the factors that influence the development of self-regulation, the importance of emotions and motivation for self-regulation as well as a description of ways in which teachers influence pupils’ learning self-regulation. Feedback is highlighted as the influencing factor in the development of self-regulation. All types of feedback are defined alongside the ways of providing feedback and strategies for providing quality feedback. Self-assessment is presented as a type of feedback. The theoretical part concludes with the presentation of the influence that feedback has on self-regulated learning.
The main purpose of the master’s thesis is to illustrate the correlation between providing feedback and pupils’ learning self-regulation. 46 pupils attending three different sections of the 4th grade at one of the medium-sized primary schools in the Goriška region with their class teachers participated in a combined qualitative and quantitative research. The research focused on the teacher feedback (of what it consists, how it is provided and how it is accepted by pupils). The aspect how pupils use teacher feedback in further learning was empirically assessed. The data were collected based on triangulation: by observing, surveying pupils and interviewing teachers.
The results show that teachers encourage learning self-regulation by providing learning strategies. Feedback is quite scarce as it is mostly focused on encouraging positive motivational beliefs which is good, but by no means enough. According to the teacher’s feedback, pupils should have a clear idea about what they have yet to learn and how to do it. The majority of feedback meets only one of seven criteria for good feedback (the most frequently was criteria Encourage positive motivation and self respect, the least frequently were criteria Deliver high quality feedback about students learning and Encourage student teacher dialogue. Pupils report that they understand teacher’s feedback and they either use it when learning or it helps them to learn.
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