Improving Learning in Secondary Schools : Conditions for Successful Provision and Uptake of Classroom Assessment Feedback [1 ed.] 9781443882446, 9781443876933

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Improving Learning in Secondary Schools

Improving Learning in Secondary Schools: Conditions for Successful Provision and Uptake of Classroom Assessment Feedback By

Kenneth Ndifor Tangie

Improving Learning in Secondary Schools: Conditions for Successful Provision and Uptake of Classroom Assessment Feedback By Kenneth Ndifor Tangie This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Kenneth Ndifor Tangie All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7693-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7693-3

To mummy Nge and teachers of her kind, Moulders of society and of questive minds, Sincere, dedicated, ever true in giving the mark. Yet, comparing sacrifices with benefits fed back, Heave a sigh not of satisfaction and relief, But of anger, disappointment and disbelief.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures, Tables and Appendices ..................................................... ix Preface ....................................................................................................... xii Acknowledgements .................................................................................. xiv List of Abbreviations ................................................................................. xv Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Prolegomena: Setting the Scene 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Conceptualisation: feedback, learning and context 1.2 Rationale for the research 1.3 Theoretical inputs to the study 1.4 Conclusion Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 17 Research on Feedback and Learning: A Critical Look Back 2.0 Introduction. 2.1 Revisiting the definition of feedback in learning 2.2 The summative-formative divide and implications on feedback for learning 2.3 The role of formative assessment-generated feedback in learning 2.4 Types of feedback and their role in learning 2.5 Students’ understanding of feedback and implications for learning 2.6 Students’ reactions to feedback and implications for learning 2.7 The influence of socio-cultural factors on feedback provision and uptake 2.8 Conclusion: Research question revisited Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 51 Investigating Teachers’ Feedback Practice and Students’ Learning in Anglophone Cameroon Secondary Schools 3.0 Introduction 3.1 Paradigmatic considerations in the research

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3.2 Research strategy: The case study method 3.3 Research design and sampling 3.4 Data gathering instruments 3.5 Data collection procedures 3.6 Ethical issues in the study 3.7 Data analysis 3.8 Conclusion Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 102 Secondary Teachers’ Feedback Conceptualisations, Practices and Intentions 4.0 Introduction 4.1 Teachers’ conceptualisation and understanding of feedback 4.2 Teachers’ feedback practice in secondary classrooms in Cameroon 4.3 Conclusion Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 157 The Feedback-Learning Relationship in Anglophone Cameroon Secondary Schools 5.0 Introduction 5.1 How do various feedback forms work in learning? 5.2 Evidence of students’ learning 5.3 Conclusion Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 207 Contextual Constraints on the Feedback for Learning Relationship 6.0 Introduction 6.1 Conditions for optimal teacher feedback provision 6.2 Conditions for optimal student uptake of teachers' feedback 6.3 Conclusion Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 258 Conclusion 7.1 Recommendations and perspectives for better feedback practice 7.2 Limitations to the study and prospects for further research Appendices .............................................................................................. 275 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 295

LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND APPENDICES

Figures 1.1 Map showing the position of Cameroon along the West African coast 1.2 Conceptualising an uneasy relationship between feedback and learning 3.1 Main features of research design 3.2 Teacher feedback behaviour observation schedule 3.3 Example of a data matrix showing how feedback events were recorded in a typical lesson observed 4.1 Six Cameroonian teachers’ conceptualisation of feedback 4.2 Cumulative totals of feedback events recorded by category in three schools 4.3 Comparing overall frequency of feedback forms in lessons 4.4 Comparing teachers’ written feedback preferences 4.5 Comparing work and conduct as objects of feedback reporting. 4.6 Comparing feedback practice by audience categories 4.7 Feedback totals per category in PCAS 4.8 Feedback totals per category in JBSS 4.9 Feedback totals per category in GHS 4.10 Positions teachers occupy along the feedback continuum 4.11 Comparing the presence and absence of feedback in teacher talk 5.1 Termly results in Geography: Vally 5.2 Termly results in English: Vally 5.3 Termly results in English: Doro 5.4 Termly results in English: Henry 5.5 Termly results in Geography: Henry 5.6 Termly results in English: Carl 5.7 Termly results in Geography: Carl 5.8 Termly results in English: Clare 5.9 Termly results in Chemistry: Clare 5.10 Termly results in English: Laura 5.11 Termly results in Chemistry: Laura 5.12 Attributions of success in learning 6.1 Correlation between linguistic proficiency in English and academic achievement in Geography and Chemistry

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List of Figures, Tables and Appendices

Tables 1.1 A model of behaviour modification showing responses and consequences 2.1 Typology of teacher feedback 2.2 Feedback forms and their role in learning 3.1 Synoptic description of variables and categories 3.2 Rules for coding variables and categories using T. F. B. O. S. 3.3 Estimates of inter-coder reliability in two lessons 3.4 Recapitulative table of data collected and analysed 4.1 Institutions and participants: profiles and characteristics 4.2 Similarities in teachers’ feedback practice 4.3 Differences in teachers’ feedback practice 6.1 Teachers’ opinions on the unsuitability of working conditions for feedback purposes.. 6.2 Scores students obtained in the ST in English 6.3 Selected examples of language errors students made during interviews 6.4 Number of errors of competence in English that five students made 6.5 Scores students obtained in the ST in English and SB assessments in Geography and Chemistry 6.6 Teachers’ explanations for students’ misunderstanding of feedback 6.7 Students’ and teachers’ views on the status of PE 6.8 Teachers’ perceptions of PE in Cameroon 6.9 Students’ perceptions of PE in PCAS, JBSS and GHS 6.10 Sate policy on CP in schools: teachers’ opinions

Dialogue Extracts 4.1 Incidence of ‘Flat acceptance’ in an English language lesson 4.2 Incidence of ‘Clue’ in a Geography lesson 5.1 Dialogue extract from an English language lesson in PCAS 5.2 Dialogue extract from an English language lesson in GHS 5.3 Dialogue extract from a Geography lesson in PCAS 5.4 Dialogue extract from an English language lesson in JBSS 5.5 Dialogue extract from an English language lesson in GHS

Documents 6.1 Sample progress report slip 6.2 Newspaper report on teachers’ strikes 6.3 Mr WL and his students in a Chemistry lesson held in GHS

Improving Learning in Secondary Schools

Appendices Appendix 1: Operational definitions for variables and categories in the observation record Appendix 2: Transcription conventions for interviews and observational recordings Appendix 3: Supplementary teacher and student interview accounts Appendix 4: Cross-sectional view of students and teachers in classrooms in Cameroon

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PREFACE

Students need to be told whether or not they are doing well in their work and conduct at school, to be able to correct misconceptions and omissions that can render them incapable of making progress and learning in a given subject. This book reports a doctoral research that examined teachers’ feedback practice (i.e. ways in which teachers provide assessment feedback and various forms of feedback they deploy) and how it promotes and does not promote student learning in three secondary schools drawn from English-speaking Cameroon. The concept of feedback is approached in this book from a socio-cultural perspective. Feedback, like formal and informal instruction and assessment, is not mediated in vacuo; it is a social process taking place in a social setting, conducted by, on and for social actors. In one way or another, aspects of this setting are bound to affect the way feedback is construed and deployed and how students make use of it. The main research question the study attempted to answer, then, is what the relationship between feedback and learning is in the linguistic and sociocultural contexts of the classrooms studied. To investigate this question, I observed how teachers deployed feedback orally during English, Geography and Chemistry lessons. I also collected samples of assessed written work e.g. tests and exercises for written feedback and interviewed teachers and students so as to determine whether what teachers say they do in class and what students think their teachers do, reflect what teachers were observed to be doing. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of data revealed that the way teachers conceptualise and operationalise feedback in the schools studied takes no account of student learning. Teachers were found to be making predominant use of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ feedback relating to affective and social learning, and less use of ‘neutral’ feedback with potential to promote cognitive skill development. Also, several aspects of the research setting, notably, Government policy on Pidgin English and corporal punishment work against successful feedback provision, uptake and learning.

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To date, while the literature on how feedback influences learning is extensive, empirical research into conditions under which feedback promotes learning have, by comparison, received sparse attention. A major contribution the current study claims to make to knowledge and understanding of how feedback works in classrooms is that feedback is construed, mediated and received as part of a socio-cultural process that determines its very existence and meaning. Therefore, the feedbacklearning relationship cannot be usefully conceptualised without due consideration given to the linguistic and socio-cultural contexts in which both feedback and learning operate.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It may take one to dream of success, but it takes many to realise it. The present book would be a far away treasure but for immense assistance and cooperation from many, some of whom I must commend. I am particularly indebted to Dr Edith Esch of Cambridge University for demonstrated commitment, interest, encouragement and intellectual support from conception to operationalisation of this work, and for standing close by when my spirits were low. I am also thankful to Dr Ivo Tambo formerly of the Faculty of Education, University of Buea for advice on dealing with practicability difficulties I faced while collecting research data in Cameroon. I am indebted to my lecturers at the Cambridge University School of Education for untiring efforts at pointing the path to inquiry, to Professors Donald McIntyre, Malcolm Benson and Loreto Todd for providing helpful suggestions and/or readings respectively on teacher training, corporal punishment and the transcription of Cameroon Pidgin English. I hope they find in this piece reassurance that their help was timely and duly valued. My gratitude also goes to research participants and other resource persons in Cameroon who provided invaluable information without which my research would never have progressed beyond foundation level. I am thinking particularly of school heads and their deputies in the Private School of Arts & Science Tiko, John the Baptist Secondary School Buea and Government High School Molyko, Buea. I am most grateful to the following: UK Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, Faculty of Education Graduate Finance Committee, Gilchrist Educational Trust, Board of Graduate Studies Research Awards Committee, Sir Ernest Cassell Educational Trust and Africa Educational Trust for financial assistance provided towards the realisation of this project. Finally, I acknowledge moral support and encouragement from my entire family, particularly from my wife, parents, brothers and sisters.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. MINEDUC Ministere de l’Education Nationale (Ministry of National Education) 2. DELEDUC Délégation de l’Education Nationale (Provincial Delegation of National Education) 3. CP Corporal Punishment 4. PE Pidgin English 5. SE Standard English 6. PPI Provincial Pedagogic Inspectors 7. SNAES Syndicat National des Enseignants du Secondaire (Secondary Teachers’ Trade Union) 8. PCAS Private College of Arts and Science 9. JBSS John the Baptist Secondary School 10. GHS Government High School 11. ST Standardised test 12. TFBOS Teacher Feedback Behaviour Observation Schedule 13. NCC National Curriculum Council 14. GCE General Certificate of Education 15. GCSE General Certificate of Secondary Education 16. DfES Department for Education and Skills 17. CPE Common Promotion Examination

CHAPTER ONE PROLEGOMENA: SETTING THE SCENE

1.0 Introduction ‘How can either teachers or pupils proceed without checking that… learning is effective, and gaining the immediate feedback that is essential to correct misconceptions and omissions which can render a pupil incapable of proceeding in the later stages of the subject? To teach without assessment feedback is to travel blind’ (Black, 1995:269).

On several occasions in our daily life, we make value judgements about how satisfactorily or not we think something has been done, for example, how well a motorist drives on the highway. In this case we use our discretion and, at times, known pre-established criteria to assess and comment on the motorist’s skill and the opinions we give can influence the way the motorist performs the activity on a future occasion. Teachers in classrooms do the same thing: they are frequently expected to assess students’ work and conduct and to provide them with feedback which, in diverse ways, can determine further actions they take in view of improvement. This book reports a doctoral study which examined teachers’ feedback practice (taken, generally, as ways in which teachers deploy feedback and, specifically, as various forms of feedback they deploy) and how it promotes or does not promote students’ learning in three secondary schools in Cameroon. It is important to understand at the outset how the concepts of feedback and learning were used in the study. The term ‘feedback’ denotes: y

Information or statements of opinion about the quality of something e.g. an aspect of conduct, a piece of writing, an oral response to a question, etc based on subjective judgements regarding its acceptability e.g. ‘Your response is sketchy’;

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Chapter One

Follow-up action (s) taken by the provider of feedback towards the recipient in respect of the evaluative judgement e.g. praise following good performance, rebuke or punishment following poor conduct, or requests for retrial following inadequate academic contributions students make (as in ‘Add more flesh to the response’). Joyce et al (2000:8) refer to these two dimensions of feedback respectively as ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ feedback.

I claim the right to use the term ‘feedback’ to designate that and only that which is yielded by the definition I give it in this book, without being obliged to deal with all the problems directly or indirectly evoked by the concept and by any other meanings it may have. Learning can be defined as the acquisition of skills, knowledge, understandings or attitudes through instruction, training, experience and observation which enable a change in the learner (Gagné, 1977; Cullingford, 1990). This change can be seen through: development in students’ cognitive ability necessary for the accomplishment of academic/ intellectual tasks e.g. high order thinking, problem-solving, etc; development of affective attributes e.g. interest, motivation, etc required for student engagement, commitment and effort in the learning process; acquisition of norms of conduct and citizenship in school and the wider society e.g. the need for punctuality in class attendance, keeping quiet when the teacher and other students are talking, also referred to as ‘social learning’ (Gagné, op.cit.). Though cognitive, affective and social learning are recognised as important for students’ education, feedback forms that relate to cognitive growth are considered of special significance for them. Hence, the contribution a particular feedback type makes to learning as presented and analysed in this book will be determined, above everything else, by its capacity to promote cognitive skill development in students and to: x bring about a relatively permanent change in their behaviour. This is only possible when feedback enables what Black & Wiliam (1998a) refer to as ‘deep’ learning as opposed to ‘surface’ learning. Deep learning involves understanding and prolonged, not short-term, grasp of subject matter; x enable problem-solving in situations other than the ones in which feedback is given and taken up. This involves transfer of knowledge to extra-classroom contexts and is a key issue because it indicates that deep learning has occurred. (Crooks, 1988);

Prolegomena: Setting the Scene

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3

help students make improvements in their work and develop the skills necessary for this.

In principle, it is possible for teachers’ feedback to meet all three criteria for cognitive learning but practice in some teaching and learning environments is a lot more complicated. This is because a lot of tensions and controversies surround the way feedback and learning operate in classrooms, making it difficult for one to conceptualise a one-to-one link between the two. Some of these are discussed below.

1.1 Conceptualisation: feedback, learning and context 1.1.1 Conceptualising the feedback – learning relationship: issues, tensions and controversies According to Butt (2010:84), ‘effective feedback is highly situational; it depends on the context in which it is given. More importantly, it depends on the students themselves–are they ready to receive it, understand and trust what is being said? Are they empowered and motivated to act on this information?’ In an ideal classroom situation devoid of any obstacles to successful teaching and learning, the relationship between feedback and learning can qualitatively be hypothesised and explained in very simple terms. For instance, after assessing the quality of students’ work and conduct, a teacher can carry out a number of activities to help students use assessment results and improve on their performance and learning. He/she can make students know their level of performance, what the expected target to be attained is, and what they should do to get there. Students can now take appropriate measures to see that they improve on the quality of their work and conduct. However, the experience of feedback and learning in classrooms is not so straightforward for a number of reasons. Firstly, Ramaprasad (1983:4) has complained about the ‘lack of a commonly accepted definition of the concept of feedback’ across disciplines1 since 1

Ramaprasad himself considers feedback in management theory, as ‘information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of a system parameter, which is used to alter the gap in some way’. According to Walklin’s (1991:158) explanation, it applies in industrial contexts, to linking a system’s (i.e. a machine’s) output to its inputs, thereby monitoring what is going on and keeping the system under control. Kluger & DeNisi (1996:225) from an educational psychological perspective, define feedback interventions as actions taken by (an) external agent (s) to provide information regarding some aspect (s) of one’s task

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Chapter One

researchers use it to mean slightly different things. The implication he draws is that cross-disciplinary exchange and understanding of academicrelated information on the subject will be difficult to achieve. Even within a given discipline e.g. education, professionals and novices with varying levels of knowledge and experience may differ in their understanding of what feedback is, what its purposes and intentions are and what reactions it is intended to provoke from those who receive it. If a teacher deployed a given feedback form and intended for his students to use it for the purpose of learning, no such learning would occur if the students did not recognise the feedback given to them in the first place. If students do not act on feedback because they do not receive it, then such feedback is of low effectiveness or even ineffective. As Perrenoud claims, communication theory tells us that the effectiveness of a message is measured at the level of the recipient. There is no point sending messages if they are treated as noise rather than as intelligible or pertinent information liable to help the recipient learn. By not receiving feedback, students may not get further knowledge or understanding about the task on which performance was assessed, no information that can convert into better or different strategies for learning and, as a result, are less likely to improve on their performance and learning. In addition, the forms of feedback teachers make use of can have different, and sometimes, conflicting outcomes that affect students’ learning in different ways. While warning, criticism and punishment may cause one student to learn appropriate modes of behaviour or to increase his/her effort and motivation in studies, they may cause another student to rebel and abandon learning tasks out of frustration and resentment for the teacher. Therefore, the way feedback relates to learning depends, crucially, on certain personal characteristics of the learner, all of which no one teacher can claim to master in order to provide feedback satisfactorily or to predict exactly how students will respond to feedback he/she provides. Further, there is evidence (Bennett et al, 1984) that the ideological stance a society has about how learning is achieved determines the orientation pedagogical practices take in schools, especially instructional techniques performance. They add that this definition is similar but not limited to the notion of ‘knowledge of results’. As far as teaching and learning are concerned, multiple definitions of feedback can create confusion in teachers’ minds about what to give priority to in their feedback practice and what to exclude as irrelevant for learning purposes.

Prolegomena: Setting the Scene

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which teachers adopt to provide feedback. In western communities where the concept of progressive learning has gained currency, and where it is believed the student’s brain is not a tabula rasa (or blank sheet) on which adults should inscribe everything instructional, teachers will tend to celebrate learner autonomy by encouraging students to engage in independent thought and action and to realise their learning potential. In other learning communities where students are expected to rely exclusively on teachers to plan and provide everything for them, they will not be encouraged to take personal initiative in intellectual development. Teachers will more likely correct students each time they make mistakes without giving them opportunities to correct themselves, although it is a practice many researchers have identified as not very helpful for learning. James (1998) for instance, believes that it tends to limit the possibility of students becoming self-reliant and self-confident when handling tasks of an intellectual nature. It should be said, finally, that assessment, feedback and learning processes do not occur in vacuo; they are fundamentally social processes taking place in social settings, conducted by, on and for social actors. In one way or another, aspects of these settings are bound to influence how teachers give feedback and how students learn from it, hence, should not be overlooked in any study on the effectiveness of teachers’ classroom feedback practice. It is for this reason that in the next section, I examine the relevance of context, drawing attention, specifically, to how linguistic and socio-cultural factors in classrooms in Cameroon can impinge on the feedback for learning process.

1.1.2 The importance of context The Linguistic situation and influences on feedback for learning Language impacts on the relationship between feedback and learning. If one takes a constructivist view of learning that accentuates teachers’ interactive role in students’ learning (Vygotsky, 1978), the teacher’s language becomes the key mediating factor during interaction with students. This is because it is principally through oral and written language that teachers construe and deliver feedback and students’ understanding and the extent to which they make cognitive gains thereof will depend on their ability to process their teachers’ language.

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Chapter One

Fig. 1.1 Map showing the position of Cameroon along the West African coast

Prolegomena: Setting the Scene

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Several aspects of the linguistic situation of Cameroon2 allow for particular complexities in the way feedback works for learning. There is some evidence that for some time, English-speaking Cameroonian students taking the GCE Ordinary level examination have, overall, consistently demonstrated low levels of success in all aspects of the English language paper (See Association for Educational Assessment in Africa, 18th Annual Conference Proceedings, 2000). If this implies insufficient individual competence in this language among other things, then one can conclude that these low ability levels also affect students’ comprehension of teachers’ classroom discourse and the input (including feedback input) they get from teachers. In other words, it is likely that much of what teachers intend to pass across as feedback during lessons does not get through as students do not understand teachers’ language well enough. It is important to state here that the Cameroon Government does not place as much emphasis on indigenous languages. There are several possible explanations for this, one of which is the following: To ensure that students gain sufficient mastery of one of the two official languages in Cameroon, but not at the expense of the other, students are expected to study English and French (both of which are foreign languages) at secondary school. Upon completion, they are required to achieve ‘a respectable degree of proficiency’ (Chumbow, 1980) in the two languages. As Tadadjeu (1997) has shown, the majority of them are not used in schools for literacy and this seems to have adverse effects on students’ mastery of English and French in a way that is best explained by Cummins’ hypothesis (1984, 1986).3 It has been argued that 2 None has captured the complexity of the linguistic situation more vividly than the late Professor Fonlon: ‘It is in Cameroon that the African confusion of tongues is worst confounded’ (1969:8). Cameroon, which is called ‘Africa in miniature’ offers a clear example of sub-Saharan multilingualism. As Todd (1984a:160) notes, ‘in addition to the vernaculars which may be classified as local, oral, domestic languages, there are two official languages, namely, English and French; one widely used but unofficially recognised lingua franca, Cameroon Pidgin English; a number of African languages of wider communication including Douala, Mungaka, Bulu, Ewondo and Hausa; and a non-indigenous language, namely, Arabic.’ 3 Cummins (1984, 1986) is noted for his contribution to research in this area through his famous ‘threshold hypothesis’. The hypothesis suggests a relationship between bilingual competence and cognitive development and proposes that there may be threshold levels of linguistic competence which bilingual children, like the

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Chapter One

Fig. 1.2 Conceptualising an uneasy relationship between feedback and learning

children’s success in a second or foreign language may also depend on how developed their skills are in their home language. This hypothesis has prompted proposals for early schooling in the mother tongue. When the home language tends to be denigrated by others and selves, it would appear appropriate, Cummins (1986:18) argues, to begin initial instruction ones in Cameroonian classrooms, must attain in order ‘to avoid cognitive disadvantages and to allow the potential beneficial aspects of becoming bilingual to influence cognitive functioning’ (1986: 6). Two threshold levels of bilingual competence are hypothesized, the lower and the higher levels (also see Romaine, 1994:238). Cummins argues that below these threshold levels, children’s competence in a language may be sufficiently weak and their cognitive growth would suffer as a result e.g. as in ‘semi-linguals’ who do not have sufficient knowledge of the two languages in a bilingual learning situation. However, children whose competence extends beyond the higher threshold level e.g. ‘balanced bilinguals’ who have sufficient knowledge of both languages are likely to be able to reap the benefits of bilingualism (Romaine, idem). If one were to go by this theory, it would be useful, then, that students be able to have an acceptable level of proficiency in their first and second languages.

Prolegomena: Setting the Scene

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in the child’s first language. The argument here is that children in foreign language classrooms who lack instruction in their first language do not have the opportunity to develop ‘cognitive academic language proficiency’, a universal underlying proficiency shared across languages, which they require to be able to easily learn other languages. It is unlikely that mastery of up to two foreign languages will follow smoothly when the mother tongue is yet to be sufficiently mastered. Other factors impacting on the feedback for learning relationship have their origins, as Fig. 1.2 shows, in the social and cultural contexts of teaching and learning in Cameroon. Socio-cultural influences on feedback for learning The school as an institution has its own culture, a micro culture in which is embedded a classroom culture, and both of which are microcosms placed within the wider educational macro structure of a given society. Understanding the way feedback works in schools requires understanding the influence of the socio-cultural input that learners bring with them to class on their daily learning experiences. For example, Kimball (1974) found that students from the same tribe as their teacher (s) tend to get closer to the latter socially; they identify with one another, first, as members of the same school and classroom, but, more importantly, as belonging to a wider and often more valued socio-cultural entity. Such students were found to engage more conversationally with their teachers during and after lessons and even out of school. The researcher concluded that every other factor remaining constant, students ‘whose links with teachers extend beyond classroom confines are more likely to benefit from teachers’ attention than their peers-and are more likely to concentrate more in these teachers’ lessons (p. 294). As we have seen above, the relationship linking teacher feedback and student learning is neither smooth nor linear but is usually characterised by uncertainties, not least of which is whether linguistic and socio-cultural aspects interfere with the wider learning context. The question to be answered now is why write a book on feedback and learning; also, how relevant is it to the educational system of Cameroon and, potentially, to other school settings across the world? The answer to this question can be found in the rationales for the research carried out. The first rationale concerns the general significance of the study and is meant to serve the wider community of teachers, students and educational researchers worldwide.

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Chapter One

1.2 Rationale for the research 1.2.1 Why a study on feedback and learning? The more we study how classroom feedback works in learning, the more we will know which forms are useful for improving standards of achievement and to make use of such forms to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in schools. Many concerned with classroom assessment-related research have recognised how useful teachers’ feedback is as a legitimate area of inquiry and have variously illustrated this in terms of how teachers, and students in particular, could benefit from research into and practice of feedback provision. x The student stands to benefit educationally from his or her tutor’s response to what they have produced; feedback or knowledge of results then becomes ‘the life-blood of learning’ (Rowntree, 1987:24). x Sadler (1989:119) considers feedback ‘the key in formative assessment’ which enables pupils to close the gap between their actual performance and what is expected of them by teachers or schools. x Teachers’ feedback is one of the many classroom processes that enable students to arrive at cognitive change i.e. to build new knowledge (Pintrich et al, 1993). x Davis (1998:6) claims that through formative assessment and subsequent reporting, feedback enables pupils to learn more effectively and to make progress. x Feedback generated from students’ work helps teachers modify teaching techniques when they realise students have not done well (Black & Wiliam, 2003). x It enables teachers to verify that students have understood previous lessons so that they can introduce a new topic in their lessons (Tangie, 2015). While the literature on how feedback influences learning is extensive, systematic studies (based on empirical research in classrooms) into linguistic and socio cultural conditions under which feedback promotes learning have, by comparison, received sparse attention. It is useful, therefore, to conduct studies that will help educationists and educational researchers understand the tensions and conflicts that are likely to interfere with the feedback for learning process: that inhibit the appropriate provision of feedback, the provision of suitable feedback by teachers and the uptake and use of such by students. A study conducted in secondary

Prolegomena: Setting the Scene

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classrooms in Cameroon should certainly be relevant to Cameroonian education, which leads me to the next discussion.

1.2.2 Relevance of the study to Cameroonian education I am not aware of any study (empirical or non-empirical) that has documented how students in secondary schools in Anglophone Cameroon4 are given information about the quality of their work and/or conduct and of the role this plays in their learning. The present study reported in this book is arguably the first and hopefully a step in the right direction. According to the Association for Educational Assessment in Africa (2000), contemporary educational researchers in Anglophone Cameroon (notably those interested in school-based assessment and evaluation), seem to be more preoccupied with other issues related to assessment e.g. the reliability and validity of teacher-made tests, challenges faced by the Cameroon GCE Board in the management of certificate examinations, but not with how secondary teachers provide feedback, nor whether it has an effect on learning and if so, what effect. For example, only little interest has so far been demonstrated towards teachers’ use of positive, negative or neutral feedback5 in naturally occurring classroom discourse or in their 4

The Republic of Cameroon is geographically and linguistically split into two large communities. French-speaking or Francophone Cameroonians make up the bulk of the ten administrative provinces, while English-speaking or Anglophone Cameroonians make up the minority, two provinces: the North West and South West Provinces. ‘An Anglophone Cameroonian citizen is taken to mean a person whose first official language in the context of the Cameroon Constitution is English. Although Cameroonian Anglophones by this definition may hail from any part of the country, their base is mainly the South-West and North-West provinces’ (Tambo, 1993). 5 Conventionally, and in school feedback literature, ‘positive feedback’ is considered one that is meant to be complimentary, to please, as in acceptance of students answers to questions, encouragement and praise, while ‘negative feedback’ is meant to displease as in criticism, warning or punishment. What is neither positive nor negative would be ‘neutral’ e.g. probing students to say more about a point they have raised, asking them to correct work they got wrong the first time. This is the distinction I take issue with in this book. However, I termed the third category ‘neutral feedback’ only for want of a better label because in reality, its role in learning is far from being ‘neutral’ as analysis of data in subsequent chapters will show. Also, it is worthy to say that the terminologies are only labels for feedback analysis; conceptual boundaries between them are not always clearcut, especially when one considers that an easily identifiable approving remark may mean different things for different audiences (may be interpreted variously as positive, as negative and as neutral feedback), or may be interpreted as having

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Chapter One

comments on pupils’ written productions. ‘The effects of intrinsic rewards on students’ performance in schools in Buea sub-division’, ‘Manifestations and handling of disruptive behaviour by secondary school teachers in Tiko district’, ‘The impact of corporal punishment on the learner’ are examples of empirical research into issues related to positive and negative feedback that a few research students at the only state-owned Anglo-Saxon university in the country have attempted. These, however, are small-scale studies with findings yet to be published. It is with these considerations in mind that I have decided to direct attention to these issues, beginning with an inquiry into the relationship between teachers’ feedback and pupil learning. In this book, I aim therefore, to explore the relative effectiveness of different teacher feedback types on students’ learning with particular regard to the context-sensitivity of the learning situation, and to use this exploration to suggest ways and means of enhancing feedback systems and practices in secondary schools in Cameroon and beyond. It is hoped that findings will assist governments and policy makers worldwide in developing a feedback policy that can be effectively implemented to promote ‘good’ feedback practice in classrooms. It is useful at this point to discuss theoretical inputs to the study.

1.3 Theoretical inputs to the study To conceptualise the research question, I relied on two theoretical approaches, behaviourism and socio-cultural theory, drawn from the field of Psychology. They both have a bearing on my research as they emphasise in different ways the role of the teacher, of the learner, of language and of culture in the learning process. Each theoretical perspective will be examined in the light of two questions: ™ How does it work in the educational setting? ™ What contribution does it make to our understanding of the concept of feedback for learning? I begin this section by discussing the place behavioural learning theory has in this book. multiple functions. These issues are discussed in more depth in subsequent chapters of this book.

Prolegomena: Setting the Scene

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1.3.1 A behavioural approach to the study of feedback and learning It becomes difficult to exclude a theoretical perspective like behaviourism from a study which deals with such overt and publicly observable phenomena as teachers’ utterances and pupils’ actions that trigger them. Behaviourism as a concept in Psychology ‘is concerned with the ways in which people or animals learn through interaction with their environment’ (Pollard and Filer, 1999:3). Many teacher feedback behaviours e.g. praising and punishing, directly reflect behaviourist principles and each of these can be analysed in terms of its relationship to its antecedents (pupils’ actions that trigger feedback responses from teachers) and its consequences (the apparent effects teachers’ reactions have on students). In more practical terms, teachers ask questions in class, pupils answer them, and teachers deliver judgements on the adequacy of pupils’ responses that can cause pupils to modify them. It is possible, therefore, for teachers to control their students’ reactions in class by simply providing them with the appropriate stimuli (Skinner, 1974). For example, teachers can reinforce positive academic and social behaviours in students i.e. making it possible for them to repeat such behaviours by a) providing them with positive reinforcers in the form of praise or rewards and b) withholding negative reinforcers in the form of reprimands or punishment. In the same way, unwanted behaviours can be eradicated by supplying or not supplying the appropriate environmental stimuli that are likely to make them occur (see Table 1.1 below) It seems reasonable to suggest, on the basis of the above discussion, that if more attention is paid to the social environment in which children learn and, particularly, to the environment as represented by teachers’ behaviours, this will lead to pupil learning that is both efficient and effective. However, none of the foundation principles of behaviourism captures learning in cognitive terms; the theory’s contribution to classroom learning, it seems, is limited to the area of discipline. As Blackman (1984:9) argues, it ‘offers educational methods of classroom management in which principles of behaviour modification are applied to the routine management of classes (and individual pupils) in order to sustain an environment conducive to the attainment of educational goals’.

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Chapter One

Table 1.1 A model of behaviour modification showing responses and consequences

Delivery of

Removal of

To increase behaviour (s)

To reduce behaviour (s)

‘Good things’, i.e. rewarding with smiles, sweets, toys, praise, tokens, good marks, comments. ‘Positive Reinforcement’ ‘Bad things’, i.e. allowing escape from pain, noise, nagging, threats, etc. ‘Negative Reinforcement’

‘Bad things’, i.e. punishing with smacks, frowns, reprimands, criticism, bodily injury, etc. ‘Punishment’

‘Good things’, i.e. losing money, privileges, house points, opportunities to learn good things. ‘Response Cost’6

Source: Wheldall & Merret (1984 b:16)

Also, the theory’s description of environmental events likely to follow student behaviour is limited to punishing and rewarding that make up only part of teachers’ positive and negative feedback behaviour. Research has shown that teachers respond to pupil stimuli in several other ways that cannot necessarily be described as positive or negative e.g. by probing, clueing, providing advice towards self-assessment, self-regulation and retrial. These are given no consideration though they appear to be much more at the centre of students’ learning (Tangie, 2015, Tunstall & Gipps, 1996a, b). From an educational perspective therefore, it is an empirical matter to identify which particular consequences for behaviour e.g. praise, blame, correction, etc exert reinforcing or punishing effects on the behaviour of any student, and conditions or circumstances under which this happens. Finally, the theory does not account for social and cultural aspects of the environments in which teaching and learning take place. Its theorists assume a one-to-one connection between teachers’ actions (praise, punishment) and students’ reactions (e.g. compliance), but fail to acknowledge that several factors interplay in such a relationship. The 6

Wheldall & Merret explain ‘Response Cost’ as a form of punishment that involves withdrawing or terminating positive consequences as a means of decreasing the occurrence of undesirable behaviours e.g. withdrawing weekly financial allowance from students (1984b:21).

Prolegomena: Setting the Scene

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importance of context in this book requires that I look further than behaviourism and to discuss the socio-cultural model of learning, which I consider more useful as underlying framework for the research conducted.

1.3.2 The socio-cultural approach to classroom teaching and learning Proponents of socio-cultural theory are inspired in the propositions they make by the work of Vygotsky (1978) who, according to Kozulin (1990), had long recognised the teacher’s role in students’ cognitive development. Vygotsky conceptualised learning as the result of interactions between teachers and learners including more capable peers. The main posits of Vygotsky’s followers centre around language as a mediating factor in teacher-student interaction, the importance of dialogic interaction in the classroom, and the role of experienced adults and more able peers in students’ scaffolded learning. I now examine how relevant these issues are to this book. Using language as starting point, Nystrand and his colleagues (1997: 2829) attempt to justify the relevance of discourse in classrooms. They argue that the quality of teachers’ discourse ‘establishes a suitable climate for learning and communicating teachers’ expectations for their students’. The bottom line for classroom instruction, they claim, is that the quality of students’ learning is closely related to the quality of teacher talk, which should meet certain criteria in order to promote learning: x It must involve students in multidirectional (not one-way) conversation with teachers and with one another in a language all parties master even if with varying degrees of proficiency; x It must promote collaborative small group learning, with teachers and students working in partnership. When teachers take absolute control of learning, providing students with every input, their contribution to the learning process will not be significant; We can tell from the above that teachers’ pedagogical choices within socio-cultural theory (especially their language use) determine the number of learning opportunities they create for students. Therefore, measures aimed at improving classroom learning by restructuring teachers’ feedback practice must take into account the kind of teacher discourse that fulfils the above criteria. Another important concept in this theory is ‘scaffolding’. It

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Chapter One

is an activity that is generally understood in cognitive psychology as progressive help provided by the more knowledgeable. Through this process the teacher as a knowledgeable participant creates, by means of speech, supportive conditions in which the novice student can participate and extend different skills and knowledge to higher levels of competence (Nassaji & Cumming, 2000:94, 104-105). The key implication of this for constructivist approaches to teaching and learning is summarised by Cooper and McIntyre (1996:117): “…the teacher is not simply providing the student with an “off-the-shelf” prescription for carrying out a particular task. Rather, the teacher is engaging with the student in a way that gives the teacher access to the student’s existing knowledge, understandings and preferred ways of cognitive engagement…”

This means that during ‘scaffolding’, the teacher first of all recognises the intellectual input students bring to the learning process, before building on this.

1.4 Conclusion This book discusses the relationship between teachers’ feedback practice and students’ learning in secondary classrooms in Cameroon. The present chapter attempted to set the scene for the research reported by developing the concepts central to the study, namely: feedback and learning, concepts that were shown in section 1.1 to be controversial and complex in themselves, and in their relationship with the context in which they occur. To understand how they relate with each other in the classroom, I argued that they are influenced by the linguistic and socio-cultural environments in which they operate. It is in this argument that this research claims to be innovative and to be making a contribution to knowledge in the substantive areas of classroom assessment, feedback and learning. The research question was further explained in section 1.5 in the light of two theoretical frameworks, after I had justified its selection as a question that is worthy of empirical investigation. In the next chapter, I review a number of studies on classroom interaction with focus on assessment, feedback and learning, selected on the basis of their potential to directly inform the research question.

CHAPTER TWO RESEARCH ON FEEDBACK AND LEARNING: A CRITICAL LOOK BACK

2.0 Introduction The literature on assessment in classrooms abounds with a coherent body of process-product research, linking teachers’ feedback behaviour and student achievement. For achievement outcomes, such linkages have proven difficult to establish and researchers have often reached conflicting conclusions about the effectiveness of particular feedback types on learning. Even those with similar results are not agreed on the transferability of their findings to educational and other contexts, since some of the studies have been conducted exclusively in laboratory settings via experimentation. As we saw in Chapter 1, conceptualising the link between feedback and learning raises several questions and tensions which have not been made any less complicated by the conflictual nature of underlying theories on feedback and learning themselves. However, that these two concepts are considered important in their own right, in spite of the arguments they generate in research, is unquestionable given the breadth and depth of empirical and nonempirical studies conducted around them. In this chapter, a critical analysis will be made of selected studies that explore themes relevant to the research question, namely: x How feedback can be defined in relation to students’ learning; x Summative and formative aspects of feedback and what bearing they have on learning; x The role of formative assessment-generated feedback in learning; x Particular types of feedback and how they affect learning; x Students’ understanding of feedback, their reaction to it and implications for learning;

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x The influence of socio-cultural factors on feedback provision and uptake. When analysing these issues, I will focus on studies published since 1968 to present a picture of the state of the art in the domain of school feedback. The majority of studies in this area have been published within this period. The review draws on research conducted in a number of countries including, but not limited to, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Cameroon. I start with a critical discussion of the definition of the term ‘feedback’.

2.1 Revisiting the definition of feedback Hattie and Timperley (2007) define feedback as information provided by an agent e.g. teacher, peer, book, parent and self-experience regarding aspects of one’s performance or understanding that reduces the discrepancy between what is understood and what is aimed to be understood. Reference was made in chapter 1 to difficulties that may arise if teachers and students do not share the same conceptualisation of feedback. The situation has not been made any easier by research; researchers have come up with different definitions of the term, all claimed to be based on everyday usage. Definitions proposed so far in the domain of education can be classified into two strands: those that highlight the content of feedback and those that focus on its effect. I begin with the first and Zahorik’s early account provides a suitable starting point: ‘Teacher verbal feedback refers to those oral remarks which reflect on the accuracy or correctness of the pupil’s solicited or initiated statements in relation to subject matter development’ (1968:147). This definition is restrictive: it excludes written and gestural feedback forms and alludes only to teacher statements contingent on correct and incorrect answers. A student’s answer may be acceptable but lacking in detail, in which case his teacher may probe for explanation rather than simply acknowledging the correctness of the answer. Kulhavy (1977:212) offers two explanations of feedback, the first of which, like Zahorik’s above, focuses on the information content of feedback: ‘The term feedback is used in a generic sense to describe ‘any of the numerous procedures that are used to tell a learner if an instructional response is right or wrong’. These two accounts suggest that feedback is defined in terms of information it provides to students about how successful something has been or is being done. Its principal objective

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seems to be to expose areas of weakness and strength in students’ work and, like in the first example, does not include how knowledge of this is expected to translate into enhanced performance or to better learning strategies and outcomes. Recognising weaknesses in one’s work does not necessarily lead to improvement of work (Ramaprasad, 1983:8). For instance, a teacher’s awareness of a shortfall in a student’s academic performance is not feedback in itself. Only when the awareness is translated into action (e.g. encouragement, reprimand) does the information become feedback. Similarly, when such information is simply recorded or passed on to a third party who lacks both the knowledge and power to change the outcome, the gap between actual and expected student performance cannot be closed (Sadler, 1989:121). Therefore, any definition of feedback that limits itself to information on areas of weakness and strength in students’ work and conduct is incomplete and does not work for learning. It must encompass action taken by the provider of feedback to ensure it has a learning effect on the recipient. This is what makes feedback more active and more pedagogically functional. Kulhavy’s second definition reflects this view and supports the assertion that feedback can and should also be defined in terms of its learning effects on learners: ‘Feedback can be considered a continuum ranging from the simplest ‘Yes-No’ format to the presentation of corrective or remedial information that may extend the response content’ (1977:212, My emphasis). As he concludes, the correction function is the most important aspect of feedback. This is more in line with what Ramaprasad (1983:4) proposed as definition of feedback, namely, ‘information about the gap between the actual level and the reference level of a system parameter which is used to alter the gap in some way’. This explanation is perhaps one of the most insightful contributions to assessment research due to its comprehensiveness and implications for our understanding of feedback theory. He implies that: x There is an actual level of some measurable attribute; x There is a reference level of that attribute; x There is a mechanism (e.g. a test) for comparing the two levels and generating information about the gap between them; x There is a mechanism by which information generated can be used by the recipient of feedback to close the gap.

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Another issue related to the conceptualisation of feedback that Ramaprasad raises, and which deserves comment here, is the rationale for designating particular feedback types as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’. To him, this distinction should be based on the consequences actions taken (e.g. by teachers following students’ responses in class) have for students, rather than on the type/nature of the actions taken themselves. When action is taken e.g. praising, blaming, correcting, following information generated about the quality of a student’s academic work and conduct, this action has consequences. According to Ramaprasad (1983:9), when the consequence is positive e.g. when the student increases effort so as to achieve a better performance, that is when feedback provided is termed ‘positive’ and vice versa. Therefore, rebuking or reprimanding students for poor conduct is providing feedback, but this is only termed ‘negative feedback’, for instance, when it produces a negative effect on the student e.g. when there is persistent or greater evidence of misconduct. As interesting as it looks, this argument is susceptible to attack. It fails to recognise that a feedback action may have multiple effects on different recipients in the same class. Categorising feedback as positive or negative depending on corresponding effects on students would not account for instances where no effect is produced at all. It is safer to characterise feedback types in terms of the intention of the action taken on the recipient. So, praise, for example, should be considered positive feedback because it is meant to compliment the recipient and this, logically, is a positive thing to do. In sum, we learn from the above analysis that defining feedback only in terms of the information it bears about gaps between a desired goal and students’ present state of knowledge, understanding and skill is not sufficient; it does not give feedback the potential to contribute to cognitive or behavioural change in the learner. The argument has often been made that feedback resulting from formative assessments serves learning better than feedback generated by summative assessments. It is important to now examine why and how this is so.

2.2 The summative-formative feedback divide and implications for learning The potential for summative and formative assessments (respectively referred to by Butt, 2010 as ‘high-stakes’ and ‘low-stakes’ testing) and their associated feedback forms to positively influence learning has been a subject of debate in assessment research for long (see Simpson 1990; Conner, 1991; Harlen & James, 1997; James, 1998, 2008; Assessment

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Reform Group 2002; Taras, 2003; Race et al, 2005; Smith & Gorard, 2005; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Black & Wiliam, 2003, 2008; and more recently Williams, 2010; Butt, 2010; Newman, 2011; Gamlem & Smith, 2013; DeLuca et al, 2013). In the simplest terms, formative assessment is one that is organised in the course of learning, say, at the end of a teaching unit as in everyday oral classroom questioning, periodic tests and other classroom tasks. Summative assessment is organised at the end of a learning cycle e.g. public examinations like the G.C.S.E. in Britain or the G.C.E. in Cameroon. Summative contrasts with formative in that it is concerned with summing up the achievement status of a student and is geared toward reporting for purposes of certification. Even though they differ in timing, both assessment types can lead to knowledge of results about students’ performance in tasks (Bloom, 1976). However, as Sadler (1989:12) explains, the difference between the two as far as their contribution to learning is concerned does not depend on when they occur, rather, on their purposes and effects. Their effectiveness is a measure of their impact on students’ subsequent progress. The majority view in assessment research (though a few e.g. Taras, 2003; Smith & Gorard, 2005 would disagree) is that summative assessments and their resultant feedback are not generally useful for learning. Some of the arguments expressed against this form of assessment are given below. y

y

y

Traditionally, and in most current practice, teachers’ ‘summing up of students’ attainment levels on academic tasks is in the form of grades, marks, percentages and rank orders- referred to as ‘summative feedback’, which contribute little to learning (Cooper, 2000). Bloom (1976) made following comment: ‘the result of the method of categorising individual students via grades like A, B, C, D, E, is to convince some that they are good, able and desirable from the viewpoint of the system and others that they are deficient, bad, undesirable. It is not likely that this continuous labelling has beneficial consequences for the individual’s educational development, and it is likely that it has an unfavourable influence on many a student’s self-concept’. Sadler (1989:120) also claims that a summary grade may be counterproductive because it diverts students’ attention away from the task that was given and on which performance was assessed, and that, generally, summative assessment is essentially passive and does not normally have immediate impacts on learning.

22

y

y

y y

Chapter Two

Crooks (1988:456) confirms that ‘summative evaluations’ counting (significantly) towards the student’s final mark or grade are less useful for students’ learning - students tend to pay less attention to the feedback, so learn less from it. Whilst making the case for good quality feedback in teaching, Clarke (2009:13) advises against external rewards e.g. stickers, merit marks acting like grades which, according to her, demoralise less able pupils, make more able pupils complacent and are not linked to the learning criteria of tasks. ‘Points or grades only reward and punish students for effort, engagement and skills, but do not contribute to learning’ (Gamlem & Smith, 2013:162). ‘Good quality learning is more than the average scores of a student in a class’ (Sayed & Kanjee, 2013:374).

This book takes the view that summative feedback may not always cause students to divert their attention away from learning tasks as Sadler contends. It may do so only under certain circumstances: a) if summative feedback is delayed for much too long or not provided at all. A case in point would be G.C.S.E. or other such examinations about which students only get grades and/or marks and norm-referenced rankings. Given that scripts are not made accessible to them, there is no way students can identify areas of weakness in their work let alone correct them; b) if summative feedback does not in any way offer an indication of the nature of difficulties students were facing during problem-solving, why they did not get some items right, what they can do to improve on the quality of their work and to avoid repeating errors on subsequent occasions. So, if summative assessments are intended to contribute to students’ learning in any way, this contribution can only be felt after a long period of time when the feedback they generate becomes available to students. But the intention itself would not be consistent with practice if teachers rely overly on marks and grades as a means of reporting assessment outcomes. Formative assessment, on the contrary, examines students’ competence at different stages in their learning and ‘aims to facilitate learning through formative feedback in the form of oral and written comments’ (Cooper, 2000:279). There is strong research evidence to support that written comments are much more effective in helping students improve performance. Hattie (2001) and Black & Wiliam (1998a, b; 2003; 2008a, b) have each cited research testifying that students in intervention studies who got such comments on their work made significantly higher learning

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gains than those who were provided only with grades and marks. One notable intervention study they discuss is Butler’s (1987). She demonstrated experimentally that grades can increase ‘ego-involvement’ but not performance. Regrettably, this conclusion is uncritical and lacking in detail. ‘Ego-involvement’1 can, in some cases, yield positive achievement outcomes such as better examination results. What Butler probably meant is that the link between grades and learning is not direct but only mediated through self-involvement. Butler also compared student attainments when they were given feedback consisting of a) comments alone, b) marks alone, and c) comments accompanied by marks. Her conclusion was that feedback through comments alone led to learning gains, whilst marks alone or comments accompanied by marks, did not. As she explained, ‘not all kinds of feedback about performance enhance task-involvement. The normative grades prevalent in schools seem a clear example of information that focuses attention on the self by emphasising outcomes or comparison or both, rather than task mastery’ (1978:475). That other studies (also see Kluger & DeNisi, 1996) have arrived at the same findings means perhaps one should question the whole classroom culture of marks, grades, and other forms of rewards that the school system expects teachers to make use of. From the above discussion, it appears that formative assessment, and thus formative feedback, could be more useful to students’ learning than summative assessment. Smith & Gorard (2005) are two of the very few researchers making the case for summative feedback forms in classrooms. Their study is worthy of further commentary in this book. Smith & Gorard carried out an experimental evaluation of a change in assessment practice in one comprehensive secondary school in Wales. They divided 107 year 7 pupils into four mixed ability groups. Pupils in group one (the treatment group) received formative written feedback comments only, no marks or grades for one year, whilst the others (the control group) were given marks 1

A motivational state in which students focus attention on assessing their ability against the performance of others. It is intended to promote self-worth in which students’ concern is to develop high ability. This is contrasted with ‘taskinvolvement’ which is a motivational state in which an activity is perceived as inherently satisfying and in which the student is concerned primarily with assessing and developing mastery in relation to task demands or prior performance. Thus, greater effort put in is expected to yield greater competence (Butler, 1987:474).

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and grades with minimal comments as in normal school policy (2005:21). Smith & Gorard examined progress towards Key Stage 3 for both groups in all curriculum subjects by a) looking at Key Stage 2 teacher assessments in core subjects, Maths, Welsh and Science and the percentage of pupils in each group attaining National Curriculum levels for these subjects; b) examining standardized test data e.g. on the Cognitive Ability Test and the Progress in English Test; c) analysing data on students eligible for free school meals; d) administering student questionnaires to elicit background information on student motivation, attitudes, parental background, ethnic origin, factors which, according to research, are likely to impact on student performance; e) conducting group interviews with students in the experimental group to gain understanding of their experiences of the impact of receiving comments rather than marks on their work; f) comparing predicted and actual performance in summer assessments to describe the relative progress students made and the effectiveness of each type of assessment feedback they were given (2005:24-26). Smith & Gorard report the following findings: ™ The control group had superior outcomes for English, Maths and Welsh, but with no clear overall difference from the treatment group in Science and other subjects. These outcomes could not be attributed to contextual factors including the background and prior attainment of students (2005:26). ™ There was no evidence that the intervention was successful or positively effective. If anything, it was harmful to students (2005:28). ™ Students stated during interviews they preferred to get their marks back as not receiving marks gave them little idea how to direct their efforts (2005:31). ™ The majority of students felt comments did not provide sufficient information to help them improve (2005:32). ™ Some students found comments unclear, confusing and also found it difficult to communicate progress to parents via comments only (2005:34-35). The researchers summarised that formative ‘feedback provided was poorly understood and did little to enhance the learning process. Where comments were made, they appear to focus on enhancing self-esteem or self-image rather than on what needed to be done to improve or how the student might go about improving’ (2005:34-36). Hattie & Gan, 2011,

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cited in Gamlem & Smith, 2013) noted that some of the few studies that examine students’ perception of classroom feedback to support learning suggest that much of this feedback information is poorly received and hardly used in revision of work. Teachers’ feedback is often confusing, non-reasoned, and students have difficulty applying it to their learning. I would like to suggest here that both formative and summative assessment types have their place in the educational system; both are, of necessity, conducted at different periods in time and with different educational objectives, comparing their relative effectiveness on learning in comparison with each other (as most researchers do) may not be a good idea. Rather, it would be more productive to conduct research on both separately. That is, to measure the effectiveness on students’ learning of formative feedback separately from, rather than in comparison with summative feedback. In the next section, I return in greater detail to research on the role of formative feedback in student cognitive skill development.

2.3 The role of formative assessment-generated feedback in learning Currently, the assumed good practice when using assessment to promote learning is tied to methods of formative assessment, or Assessment for Learning AfL (Butt, 2010:13). ‘Formative assessment is concerned with how judgements about the quality of students’ responses (performances, pieces, or works) can be used to mould or shape and improve students’ competence’(Sadler, 1989:120). It is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there (Assessment Reform Group, 1999, 2002). Given its ‘potential to support the learning process and promote student achievement’, formative assessment-generated feedback ‘has been acknowledged as a positive educational tool’ (Butt, 2010:74) and strongly promoted in the UK over the last decade. Butt (2010:49) adds that the surge of recent interest in the formative, educational aspects of assessment has been expressed in a number of ways: through government education policy initiatives such as the promotion of AfL in the Key Stage 3 National Strategy; through the work of assessment groups such as the Assessment Reform Group; through research which has resulted in an array of academic and professional publications. For example, Black & Wiliam 1998a,b; 2003;2008a,b,c; James 1998a, b; Race et al 2005; Clarke 2009;Bekhradnia, 2009, Williams 2010; Gamlem & Smith 2013; Sayed & Kanjee, 2013.Can one infer from the above that the mere presence of

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formative feedback in assessment guarantees learning? This question provides a starting point for discussion and analysis in this section. Black & Wiliam’s review is perhaps one of the few publications that have very extensively celebrated the role of feedback in formative assessment. These authors published a major review of research into formative assessment at the end of the 1990s. After analysing 250 pieces of literature they concluded that frequent feedback from the teacher to the learner, using assessment evidence, can yield substantial learning gains, that is, measurable improvements in student performance. Teacher-pupil feedback becomes a primary requirement for progress in pupils’ learning in formative assessment. (1998a: 7)This review, however, was the subject of a critique from Perrenoud (1998), who brought in a completely new dimension to the debate on assessment and learning. Arguing for the inclusion of ‘French sources’ in reviews on this topic (which Black & Wiliam failed to do), he called for ‘widening of the conceptual field to include regulation of learning processes’. He argued that even though formative assessment is not incompatible with feedback, the mere presence of feedback in evaluation is not enough to ensure learning, even if teachers provide the right type of feedback. ‘Evaluation is formative not only when it leads to formative feedback but when it contributes to ‘regulation of the ongoing learning process’ through regulation of students’ cognitive processes’ (Perrenoud, 1998:85). This argument is important for feedback analysis for two reasons: First of all, providing feedback is just one of many functions teachers perform in classrooms to help students learn. However, this does not mean regulating learning itself (op.cit., p.89). When teachers provide students with passages to read aloud from textbooks with the intention of assessing their reading ability, it is easier for them to verify the effects of their contribution to classroom learning because they can actually observe what students are doing with what they have been given. It is not the same with feedback. When teachers provide feedback, they may succeed in ‘stimulating, reinforcing, reorienting, readjusting or accelerating’ students’ mental processes in the hope of making them learn. But they cannot say with certainty if success has been fully achieved because it is difficult to have access to the cognitive and socio-affective mechanisms activated in pupils’ minds during problem-solving, the exact use they make or are making of feedback, or the exact problem they are facing making use of feedback at any one time. Thus it is difficult to know whether learning is

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taking place in their minds thanks to teacher feedback. What happens in the mind does not necessarily affect learning, so ‘providing conditions for learning does not guarantee learning’ (Perrenoud, 1998:89). Secondly, teachers face many practical problems during lessons, from classroom management to getting instructional information accessible to everyone; little time can be allocated for observation and follow-up of individual pupils to determine what cognitive obstacles they are facing when handling feedback. It becomes difficult (even if not impossible) for teachers ‘to formulate and transmit effective and relevant feedback deliberately at the right time’. As a result, no teacher can be sure that all feedback he or she gives will meet a target. In other words, Perrenoud explains, ‘part of the feedback given to pupils is like many bottles thrown out to sea. No one can be sure that the message they contain will one day find a receiver’ (p. 87). This argument shows clearly that providing formative feedback may be an important first step, but is not a sufficient condition for learning to take place. Such feedback can only be effective if it serves the purpose (s) for which it is intended e.g. to regulate students’ thinking processes during problem-solving activities so that they can approach tasks with ease. To sum up, the role feedback plays in formative assessment is apparently much more complex than is usually acknowledged. My analysis of Sadler (1989), Black & Wiliam (1998a), Cooper (2000), Tunstall & Gipps (1996a) and Crooks (1988) suggests that the function of feedback should stretch beyond simply providing information about weak and needy students and what weaknesses there are in their work and behaviour, to encompass concrete action towards correction and progress. Even so, we have learnt from Perrenoud (1998) that formative feedback in assessment is not enough to guarantee learning even when it meets the above named criteria; it must lead to regulation of learning which, itself, can only be done indirectly through regulation by teachers and pupils of pupils’ cognitive processes. The implication for mine and other research on feedback and learning is that the regulatory influence of formative feedback will still be weak if it is limited to criterion-referenced evaluation, which, at the end of a teaching phase, only highlights gaps in knowledge, errors and insufficient grasp of subject matter, leading to remediation by students in a bid to attain goals or standards set. The regulatory influence would be more powerful when pupils’ cognitive processes are modified via formative

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feedback. Simpson (1990) corroborates this view. It is only when feedback is used to change the way students think that its role in assessment is recognised as formative, as ‘moulding’ or ‘shaping’ students. To effectively play its role, feedback must meet certain criteria, one of which concerns whether it focuses on affective or cognitive aspects of students’ learning. As subsequent analysis will show, the focus of feedback is a key determinant of learning.

2.4 Types of feedback and their role in learning Feedback is regarded as part of the crucial interaction between teacher and student (s) carried out for the purpose of furthering learning (Smith & Higgins, 2006; Brookhart, 2008). A lot of research-based work has been published in the UK and elsewhere recommending best oral and written assessment and feedback practices for schools (see for instance, James, 1998, 2008; Assessment Reform Group, 1999, 2002; Race et al, 2005; Smith & Gorard, 2005; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Black & Wiliam, 1998a, 2003, 2008; Clarke, 2009; Maier, 2009; Williams, 2010; Butt, 2010; Newman, 2011; Gamlem & Smith, 2013; DeLuca et al, 2013). In their separate empirical studies, Brophy (1981), Tunstall & Gipps (1996a,b), Lyster & Ranta (1997) concluded that primary and secondary teachers make use of a variety of feedback forms in their classrooms. This in itself is praise-worthy but not good enough. If we consider previous evidence that not all feedback works for learning (Hattie, 2001), the question must be asked of whether or not each feedback type contributes to learning in the same way. The first study to be discussed in this section attempts an answer to this question from students’ own perspective. In 2010, Williams conducted a small-scale exploratory study of 56 12-13 year old New Zealand intermediary school children to ‘explore students’ understanding of formative assessment and its effects on their learning in order to establish what learners perceive as important to help them improve their learning’ (2010:301). She used questionnaires and follow-up interviews to obtain students’ views on the positive (or otherwise) effects of feedback on their work, enabling her to answer two of four research questions: i) which feedback forms do children find most useful for improving learning? ii) why are some types of feedback considered helpful or not helpful? The types of feedback students commented on in their questionnaire and interview responses included, amongst others: talking to you by yourself about your work, short comment e.g. ‘well done’, ‘good work’, putting a

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mark or grade on your work, long and detailed comment, correcting mistakes, talking to the whole class about a piece of work (2010:305). Williams reported that students are aware of and are able to discuss a wide range of feedback, they have a good understanding of how feedback affects their work, what they want from it, they differ in their feedback preferences which is a matter of individual choice. Students considered helpful feedback forms to be those which are positive because they encourage, those which are corrective because they show you how to do it and give you an example. Least help forms of feedback identified included talking to the whole class about the results of a unit or piece of work, giving rewards in the form of ‘lollies’. There was a clear preference for individual-focussed feedback, ‘talking to you about yourself’, and oral feedback (2010:311). Away from secondary schools, Tunstall & Gipps’ article entitled ‘Teachers’ feedback to young children in formative assessment: a typology’, is another key study that examines feedback types in relation to learning . Though it focuses on primary schools, some of the issues it addresses are directly relevant to secondary classrooms. Setting out ‘to develop a feedback typology that works in analysing and describing teachers’ feedback practice’ (1996a), the authors investigated teachers’ feedback practice in six British primary schools. They concluded at the end of their study that teachers make use of multiple assessment-based feedback forms, ‘evaluative’ and ‘descriptive’ feedback (see Table 2.1 below) that do not seem to work for learning in the same way and with similar degrees of efficiency. At one extreme of the feedback continuum, ‘evaluative feedback’ composed of ‘rewarding’, ‘punishing’, ‘approving’ and ‘disapproving’, is clearly either positive or negative feedback and relates more to affective and conative aspects of Table 2.1 learning than to students’ cognitive ability demonstrated while working on tasks. At the other extreme, ‘descriptive feedback’ comprising ‘specifying attainment’, ‘specifying improvement’, ‘constructing achievement’ and ‘constructing the way forward’, relates more to learners’ cognitive ability, to the tasks they are set, and is much more focussed on achievement and improvement (Table 2.2).

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Table 2.1 Typology of teacher feedback (adapted from Tunstall & Gipps, 1996a:190)

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Table 2.2 Feedback forms and their role in learning according to Tunstall & Gipps typology

Rewarding

Approving

Punishing

“Rewards are given as extrinsic motivation in exchange for enhanced effort or behaviour which they are also meant to reinforce”. As Kulhavy (1977:215) explains corroboratively, the traditional argument has been that providing extrainstructional rewards for good performance will lead to increases in test scores, simply because rewards cause students to be motivated and encouraged to increase effort. Some teachers have been found to give rewards in the form of pass grades even to failing and undeserving students for the same reasons (Spear, 1989). It seems the case, then, that rewards do not focus on tasks set but ‘on the self’, so have no direct influence on learning; this echoes one of the main arguments in Hattie’s (2001) meta-analysis. Approving is a warm personal expression of the teacher’s recognition of pupil engagement and achievement in work, especially when these go beyond the level the teacher had predicted. Such warm teacher evaluations are likely to raise pupil interest, improve their attitude towards work, provide encouragement, help build self-esteem and a closer relationship with teachers. If we stick to measuring the contribution each feedback type makes to learning based on its potential to stimulate cognitive engagement on tasks, then simply accepting students’ responses in class does not seem to do this. Punishing students as a verbal or physical demonstration of disapproval is equally less effective in cognitive learning but more effective in classroom management. It is meant to stamp out unacceptable academic performance and/or conduct. Research has shown that punishing students for producing work of low quality may sometimes scare them from school (Wheldall & Merrett, 1984a). This means that if the teacher’s intention in this case was to make students take appropriate measures to improve on their work and, hence, on their learning, he may end up achieving the opposite effect.

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Disapproving

Specifying Attainment

Constructing Achievement

Specifying Improvement

Chapter Two “Criticism” or “disapproving” according to Tunstall & Gipps(1996a), is used to express dissatisfaction with work or conduct that the teachers think could be better with a little more pupil effort and concentration. It is meant to be corrective of social skills, attitudes and effort, and could be efficient in classroom management by reinforcing socially acceptable behaviour by discouraging unacceptable ones. As far as cognitive learning is concerned, however, the most widely accepted view is that when criticism takes extreme forms e.g. verbal abuse when students underachieve in a task, this may divert their attention away from tasks, which would be unhelpful. A teacher “specifies attainment” when, in solo, h/she identifies and points to specific aspects of students’ work that provide the basis for their success e.g. “You gave precise examples in your answer”. The teacher’s action is much more task-oriented, much less personal and tends to strongly reflect an endeavour to develop mastery in the student of specific areas of the subject matter that was taught. When feedback is given in this way it is more likely to result in deep learning for students. Teachers “construct achievement” when they work in partnership with students to identify what is good in their work or conduct, and what needs to be amended to make performance better. Feedback here, apparently, gets the students a lot more involved in learning e.g. when they are called upon to clarify an answer to make it more accurate (as in probing), to use their cognitive ability much more productively (as in clueing), and to seek solutions themselves to difficulties they encounter in the learning process (as in self-evaluation and self-correction). “Specifying improvement” embodies three things: teachers (in solo) identifying what is wrong in students’ work and conduct, explaining why it is wrong and pointing out what needs to be done to improve on performance. The feedback here is focussed on work and behaviour as things that can be learnt and where improvement can be made. It also relates more to cognitive tasks than to personal attributes e.g. settings targets for improvement directs students’ attention to the self-regulatory and self-correcting strategies required to resolve the tasks.

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Teachers “construct the way forward” also in collaboration with learners. Both negotiate what learning problems are and decide on future possibilities for improvement of work and behaviour. This mutual identification of targets for making progress gives the student more responsibility in selfregulation. It is a constructivist approach to learning (Mercer, 1995) with advantages for students e.g. conversations become multidirectional and learning, a product of negotiated dialogue between teachers and students. With “evaluative” feedback forms, teacher-pupil interaction is more unidirectional with pupils playing a passive add receptive role.

In a most recent study conducted in Norway, Gamlem and Smith (2013) expanded work on Tunstall & Gipps’ feedback typology. Through classroom observations and interviews, they researched 150 13-15 year old students in four secondary schools drawn from three municipalities, to ‘gain insight into how secondary school students understand feedback and their perceptions of when and how they find classroom feedback useful’. Feedback types were identified from students’ perceptions and coded, after which a feedback typology was designed to provide a framework which can be used to reflect on useful classroom feedback (2013:150). Gamlem and Smith came up with a feedback typology which is broadly similar to Tunstall & Gipps’ (1996), but with an additional component ‘dialogic feedback interaction’ which underscores the importance of conversations between teachers and students during the feedback sequence. They identified four types of feedback teachers deploy (2013:162) namely: Type A feedback comprises ‘rewarding’, ‘grade giving only’, and ‘punishing’. Type B feedback comprises ‘approving’, ‘controlling’, and ‘disapproving’. Type C feedback comprises ‘specifying attainment’, ‘reporting’, ‘specifying improvement’ and Type D feedback is made of ‘constructing achievement’, ‘dialogic feedback interaction’ and ‘constructing a way forward’. Observational evidence and interview analysis revealed the following (opcit:159-162): positive feedback is one that gives approval of performance, achievement or effort and specifies what can be done to improve work. Negative feedback is when students are told they could have done better or should work harder in the future even when they believe they have done their best. Students’ perception of feedback as positive or negative or helpful for learning depends on whether or not the teacher gives time to work with feedback received and follow up feedback given.

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Students receive improvement feedback upon completing an assignment e.g. written and oral tests, comments on workbook activities but such feedback is seldom given attention in class and teachers do not set aside time to work on feedback after it has been given. The finding on time not given for students to act on feedback received is important; it shows, as Gamlem and Smith conclude, that ‘feedback becomes a message of little use in the learning process, since there are no formal opportunities to apply the feedback’. In fact, other researchers (see Brookhart, 2008, for example) have claimed that it cannot be simply assumed that when students are given feedback they know what to do with it. I revisit the issue of time in Chapter 6 when discussing context in feedback practice. Let us examine two extreme forms of feedback, praise and punishment, discussed above in more detail. Brophy’s 1981 extensive analysis of teacher verbal praise in the classroom shows that praising students, like accepting their ideas, does not work for cognitive learning. Often, educational psychologists and other sources of advice to teachers on behaviour modification-related issues (e.g. Wheldall & Merrett, 1984b), stress the value of reinforcement of good conduct or successful performance, and recommend praise as the single most valuable and desirable form of such reinforcement. Brophy has argued persuasively that despite this, praise is not often intended as reinforcement and even when it is, it frequently has other functions e.g. his study found that some teachers used praise just to establish communication with the most disruptive and most unbearable students in class who, otherwise, would feel neglected. It was not clear in this case whether it was appropriate or disruptive behaviour that the teacher ended up reinforcing in these students. If verbal praise is intended to work for learning, teachers will have to pay special attention to its reinforcing effects. Werts (1991) proposed two ways it can be used as reinforcement: Firstly, ‘Research has shown’, she argues, that ‘the effective use of reinforcement will increase positive behaviours in children and will result in rapid learning. However, when deploying reinforcement in the form of praise, the praise should label the behaviour that is being reinforced. For example, we know that praising students by saying ‘Good, you are reading your book’ is better than simply saying ‘Good’. The former tells the student what is good about his behaviour’ (p. 3). Tunstall & Gipps (1996, a, b) refer to this method of delivering praise as ‘specifying attainment. Secondly, Werts (1991) also proposes that verbal praise must be contained in what she refers to as ‘instructive feedback’. This is the provision of extra and incidental

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information in the praise or other feedback cues that follow a pupil’s response to the teacher’s questions (p. 4). It is instructive because it enables the student to learn additional material that, in many cases, is related to the information the teacher solicits via questioning and which he/she intends for the student to learn. For instance, consider the dialogue below (my example): Teacher: ‘Who is the current British Prime Minister?’ Student: ‘David Cameron’. Teacher: ‘Good. David Cameron is also leader of the Conservative Party in Britain’.

The teacher’s last remark provides supplementary input1 related to leadership of a political party, which is likely to cause reflection by the student both on the factual information solicited by the original question asked and on the task set in this question. The concept of ‘instructive feedback’ does not seem to have found much appeal in assessment research and undeservedly so because it clearly shows one way in which teachers can modify the use of praise and other positive feedback cues to make them more productive in cognitive learning. In 1999, Tajong carried out a survey in five secondary schools drawn from the South West province of Cameroon. He sought to find out from 40 students a) their individual opinions on their schools’ decision to use corporal punishment in checking and correcting disruptive behaviour, b) reasons behind the opinions they individually expressed either in favour of or against the use of corporal punishment. Examples of disruptive behaviour that prompted teachers to react by beating include fighting, absenteeism, stealing, use of foul or obscene language, alcohol addiction and drunkenness. Tajong’s study found that the vast majority of students were against the use of corporal punishment. This is explained in the reported negative repercussions (physical, emotional, psychological) associated with the repressive measure: it was considered by students to be painful, injurious, humiliating, damaging to their self-concept, creating or widening (social) 1

It is suggested that the extra information teachers provide in such cases might sometimes be misinterpreted as direct instruction. For a distinction between direct instruction and instructive feedback, and for details regarding the teaching model proposed for increasing learning through extra information in the feedback cue, see Werts (1991:4).

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barriers between victims and inflictors of punishment and maintaining (not changing) unwanted behaviour. We can tell from students’ views that punishment does not always reinforce desirable behaviours as most behaviourists think, and that, at times, it creates emotional and psychological conditions that work against cognitive learning. This is an interesting finding from a study that has attempted to document the feelings of some victims of corporal punishment in Cameroon schools. Only it would have been much more revealing had the sample been larger and had the researcher considered teachers’ perspectives as well. We recall in this section on the question of which feedback forms are useful for learning, that: x While praise and rewards as positive re-inforcers are widely recommended for use in classrooms, it would appear their role in learning as cognitive change, is secondary; x Punishing or criticising students is not generally helpful for learning even if it could be for behaviour management; x The most useful forms of feedback are the ones that get students directly involved in learning e.g. teachers’ direct correction, teachers working in partnership with students to identify and correct weaknesses in students’ work. Since students’ understanding of feedback also determines how effective it is, the question of whether students to whom feedback is addressed understand and make use of it, is crucial. It is to research covering these issues that I now turn my attention.

2.5 Students’ understanding of feedback and implications for learning ‘The meaning of teachers’ feedback-like the meaning of all other human utterance-depends very much on how teachers’ intention is perceived by its audience. Research shows that students are quite confused about teachers’ intentions and purposes in commenting on their writing’ (Zellermayer, 1989:154). In a study into ‘the meaning and impact of feedback on written assignment for students in Higher Education’, Higgins (2000) revisits the important question of students’ understanding of feedback. He notes that the process of giving and receiving feedback is a particularly complex and problematic form of communication, which takes place within the social context (p. 2). As a result of this complexity, some

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feedback teachers provide to students does not serve its intended purposes either because some students simply do not understand feedback comments or interpret them incorrectly, while others find little time to reflect on them. In other words, learning did not result from the feedback students were given. The problem is captured even better by the following account from Williams: ‘When Steve, a first year college student…read the marginal comments his teacher had written, he interpreted it one way whereas his teacher intended something else. Steve had discussed the role of computers in the classroom and concluded his essay saying, ‘Computers are an excellent tool, but they are not excellent teachers’. His teacher who wanted to praise his writing style wrote: ‘Absolutely a beautiful sentence’. But the message Steve received was that his teacher was pleased because he had complimented teachers’ (1997:3).

Higgins’ (2000) and Williams’ (1997) findings are thought-provoking. We know from the works of Cooper (2000), Higgins et al (2000) that formative feedback comments are useful for learning in higher education (HE). If other research shows students are making no use of such comments, the implication is that even when teachers make effort to provide the right type of feedback, they cannot guarantee students use it to improve on their work, especially if they cannot check that students have understood the feedback and what it requires them to do. Away from the context of HE, Tunstall & Gipps investigated pupils’ recognition and interpretation of feedback in primary schools. After researching types of feedback primary teachers give pupils (Tunstall & Gipps, 1996a), they went on to find out ‘how children interpret, understand and act on this feedback’ as an indication of what formative assessment means to them (Tunstall & Gipps, 1996b: 185). As part of interviews conducted with 49 children, they were asked how their teachers help them to make their work better, and whether or not they were told when their work was good or not very good. Methodologically, the first of these questions was not precise enough. Teachers can help students ‘make their work better’ in an umpteen number of ways e.g. by teaching well, setting homework regularly, boosting pupil interest and motivation, pointing out and correcting errors in their work. It is not possible, as Tunstall & Gipps suggest, that all the responses pupils gave referred only to aspects of teachers’ feedback practice. Nevertheless, they report that pupils’ responses revealed their ‘awareness of the use of feedback across the evaluative-descriptive continuum’ (p. 173), but with a preponderance

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of replies clustering around descriptive more than evaluative feedback. The following views were obtained from pupils: First, some claimed that they received no help or, at best, negligible contribution from teachers to make their work better; that effort at improving their work was made entirely by them either alone or in consultation with peers. These pupil responses suggest four possibilities that more or less reflect good teaching practice in various ways: x Infant teachers do not bother to provide some children with feedback and leave them to get on with work by themselves; x These teachers have successfully passed on self-regulation strategies to pupils who no longer notice the role of the teacher; x Pupils make good use of these new skills to reflect and improve on their work and conduct; x Teachers allow pupils to work on their own in pairs or groups. In addition, there is evidence in children’s responses (Tunstall & Gipps, 1996b:192, 196, 197, 199) that some of them recognised ‘evaluative feedback’ forms like approval, rewards, praise, threat, criticism, punishment, which they considered as extrinsic motivation for the improvement of work. We have already seen that these forms have only indirect influence on learning as cognitive change and the children’s responses seem to be in line with this. As reported, some of the pupils also recognised and were able to analyse particular feedback moves that can be associated with cognitive learning: teachers helped by correcting their work, providing written formative comments on work explaining errors pupils made, or by providing clues, breaking down tasks into smaller, more comprehensible units; teachers also communicated standards to be attained and what children had to do to meet these goals. Some teachers were seen to be acting ‘as guide and facilitator’ (p. 194) in a more constructivist manner by working alongside children to identify sources of mistakes, by discussing with them how to improve, and by getting them to think, ‘explaining thought in a way that the children found helpful and acceptable’ (p. 195). Teachers also got children more involved in learning by asking them to evaluate themselves – to judge the quality of what they had produced and to see whether it was the best they could offer. When what was produced did not seem to be ‘the best’, children were asked to ‘do their work again’,

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‘to correct it’, ‘do it properly’, or to ‘start again’. This gave them opportunities for reflection and thoughtful action which, some children acknowledged, are useful for their learning. What Tunstall & Gipps want to emphasise here is that the children understood perfectly well what teachers’ feedback meant and that there was no indication that they did not know the basis on which corrections were to be made. This confirms the argument I made in the earlier chapter that for feedback messages to be helpful for learning, students must recognise what they mean and what their intentions are. We recall, in summary, that, unlike in Higgins’ and Williams’ studies, the children Tunstall & Gipps studied were sensitive to feedback their teachers provided in class and also had an idea of which forms help them to make progress in their work. So, while some learners find no problem interpreting feedback, others do find a problem and for reasons one can easily identify e.g. the written feedback primary children get cannot be as detailed and as linguistically complex as that which students in higher learning programmes get. Overall, the fact that the primary children recognise feedback forms their teachers use is important; it is possible to argue that these children’s conception of what feedback is in the context of UK primary classrooms is not different from that held by their teachers, and that both can readily point to the reality when it occurs in class. It would be useful in this regard if schools were encouraged to provide teachers and learners with the same ‘feedback culture’ e.g. the same words and expressions to describe pedagogic practices related to feedback provision and uptake. This is certainly an issue that requires further investigation. For teachers to assess whether the feedback they provide is successful, they will also have to check if students as intended recipients do something about it. The next section examines research that has discussed different ways in which students react to feedback and how this affects the learning process.

2.6 Students’ reactions to feedback and implications for learning According to Andrade (2010), the power of feedback does not lie in when and how it is given, but more in when and how it is received. Regrettably, however, and as Gamlem & Smith explain, current research on feedback has focussed on explaining and extending teachers’ feedback practice, but less has been conducted on how feedback is perceived, processed and used

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(2013:150). Students are not passive recipients of a call by teachers or others to action. The very success of teacher feedback lies in the action it provokes from students, and finding out effects feedback forms have on students requires knowledge of what they actually do with the feedback they get, assuming that they hear and recognise it in the first place. In a study conducted in some Chilean secondary schools, Lyster & Ranta (1997) concentrated on ‘corrective feedback and learner uptake’, and sought to determine types of teacher reactions to students’ error moves and students’ correction moves that followed teacher feedback. They defined ‘learner uptake’ as ‘students’ utterances that immediately follows teachers’ feedback and that constitutes a reaction in some way to the teacher’s intention to draw attention to some aspect of the student’s initial utterance. There is evidence that the teacher’s overall intention is clear to the student and a description of uptake reveals what the student attempts to do with teacher’s feedback’. The authors identified two types of uptake: one that leads to ‘repair’ or correction of errors (via ‘self’ or ‘peer-repair’), and one that leads to further errors needing correction (‘needs repair’). They conclude that the first of these reflects students’ attempts at making progress in learning (p.50). Lyster & Ranta’s definition of uptake can be expanded to include nonverbal actions and reactions by writing. Silence may also be as revealing a form of student uptake, only it is difficult to know without talking to a student if his/her silence is ‘pregnant’ i.e. during which time the student actively reflects on feedback and correction moves, or ‘disinterested’ i.e. when the student discards feedback as irrelevant. In the first case, there is evidence of student uptake even though this is not overtly manifested. When a pupil seriously reflects over what information he or she has been given by teachers on the quality of his work/conduct, this indicates s/he considers the teacher’s input as relevant in some way and hopes to put it to use in the interest of learning. Other researchers have identified other ways in which students react to feedback. For instance, Zellermayer (1989) reviewed a number of studies on secondary students’ reactions to written feedback on their assignments. The majority of studies considered students’ ‘processing’ of such feedback and compared the effect of teacher praise and criticism on students’ subsequent writing. Some of the studies report that ‘students receiving negative feedback wrote less and developed negative attitudes about themselves as writers and about writing per se’ (p. 149). Unfortunately, as

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Zellermayer explains, despite previous knowledge and evidence reported about ‘the destructive effects of negative comments’, the studies reviewed did not indicate whether or not differences were noticed in the subsequent task performances of groups receiving both positive and negative comments. Equally, even if it is assumed that the latter group performed better, we are not told in what contexts positive comments are, in fact, constructive, nor do we know how such comments interact with other aspects of social and cognitive development with potential to also yield improved academic performance. Interestingly, other studies revealed that students disregarded teachers’ comments and did not even read them; others read them without paying attention to teachers’ suggestions or without attempting to correct any errors. As reported (1989:149), this was because most of them misunderstood and misinterpreted what the feedback they were directed to respond to, meant. Secondly, the learners’ repertoire of learning strategies is often too limited to process many of the comments, which only goes to confirm my assertions that feedback is ineffectual if it is not taken up and used as intended, and that it must be well communicated to the learner for it to be understood and acted upon. Kluger & DeNisi (1996) in a meta-analysis and historical review of feedback focus studied the effectiveness of ‘feedback intervention’ (FI) on performance with a view to developing what they called a ‘Feedback Intervention Theory’ (FIT). The theory has five basic assumptions (p. 250), the first of which concerns pupils’ reactions to feedback. The researchers claim that ‘behaviour is regulated or modified by comparison (by self or other) of feedback on current behaviour to goals or standards of behaviour pre-set (by self or other). This comparison may lead to a feedback-standard gap which is then reduced, widened or maintained’ (1996:259). Put simply, this means pupils will react to information on the discrepancy between their achievement standards and what is expected of them by taking action that can either reduce this discrepancy, maintain it or widen it even more. Kluger & DeNisi propose four types of action pupils may take and also some factors that determine the choice of action taken: x They attempt to reach the standard or strive to attain the goal so as to eliminate the discrepancy- this happens when the goal is clear, when students’ commitment is high and when there is belief in eventual success;

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x

They change the standard either by lowering it, thus making it attainable, or by raising it if feedback indicates the gap is small or nonexistent; x They refuse to acknowledge the existence of any gap between actual and desired performance, thus rejecting the feedback information; x They completely escape (physically and/or mentally) from the standard or abandon it altogether. This occurs when commitment is low and when success is considered to be unachievable2. When students abandon the goal or refuse to recognise it, they reach a state that Dweck et al (1978) describe as ‘learned helplessness’, i.e. when all hope of eventual progress towards the reference level is lost and despondency and resignation to fate step in. Learned helplessness exists when failure is perceived as insurmountable, and is counter-productive to learning and leads to no positive cognitive development. Their explanation of this phenomenon, very rich in detail and analysis, provided illumination on why some students reject feedback even when it is provided appropriately. So, it deserves a bit more comment. In their study, Dweck and her colleagues are concerned with ‘particular contingencies of evaluative feedback in the classroom that might provoke the tendency towards helplessness in girls despite the ‘favourability’ of the feedback they receive, and the tendency towards the confidencemaintaining patterns in boys who receive generally more negative feedback’ (p. 269). They claim that in formal learning situations girls 2 Kluger & DeNisi (1996) assert that despite the multiple behavioural options available for reacting to the feedback-standard discrepancy, people typically choose the first option, that is, to eliminate the discrepancy by attempting to attain the standard. The explanation for this is that when FI signals that performance falls short of the standard, effort is typically increased; when FI signals that performance exceeds the standard, effort is typically reduced or maintained. So, students receiving a negative FI are likely to exert more effort than those who receive a positive FI. It can be argued however, that even when a student’s commitment, motivation and belief in eventual success are high, simply exerting more energy or putting in more effort does not guarantee better achievement or indeed, learning gains. There is evidence to prove that students sometimes fail even when they work really hard, due to extraneous (un) controllable factors intervening in the learning process (Tangie, 1998). Therefore, FI may have detrimental effects on learning or may negatively correlate with performance just as it may have no effect on performance at all. For a fuller account of the FIT, its principles and hypotheses and the way it works to predict performance, see Kluger & DeNisi (op.cit.,p.259-277).

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show greater signs of ‘learned helplessness’ because they attribute their failure in tests and examinations to such ‘uncontrollable and stable factors like lack of ability’, which is accompanied by deterioration in performance following failure. Boys, on the other hand, emphasise ‘modifiable, controllable and unstable factors like lack of effort and motivation as cause of failure. As a result, they tend to perceive failure as surmountable and will often show heightened persistence in the face of negative evaluation’ (p. 268). These are very interesting claims; they suggest that under certain conditions that have their foundations in attribution theory, negative feedback can indeed yield positive affective outcomes and vice versa. This notwithstanding, the conclusions should be greeted with care. Dweck et al explain that the differences in students’ attributions of failure (either to lack of intellectual ability or to lack of effort and motivation) may be influenced by factors external to them e.g. the clarity or ambiguity of feedback received from the ‘agent of evaluation’ and the teacher’s own attributions about students’ failure when delivering negative feedback. That the authors did not specify the exact negative feedback type they are referring to does not give much credit to their analysis here. Certainly, simple reprimands or fail marks will not affect students in the same way as punishment. Further, the claims are not consistent with findings of a later study in which Dweck hoped to replicate the earlier findings. While investigating ‘sex differences in learned helplessness’ in 1986, she found that the situation of attribution is different when negative evaluative feedback following student failure is reported by peers rather than by teachers. In such situations, boys attributed failure to a ‘lack of ability and impaired problem-solving’, while girls blamed it on ‘poor effort’ and thus subsequently improved performance by increasing effort. Here again, the inconsistency in findings is compounded by the lack of explanation as to why a change in the agent of reporting from teachers to peers affected students’ attributions. Students’ reaction to feedback is not only a function of their level of commitment, as we saw above. Students’ perception of feedback motivates and determines action (learning activity) which is taken or not taken. Several factors have been shown to affect students’ perception of feedback and personal decisions about how to respond to it. Black & Wiliam (1998a:21-23) identify the following:

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x Students’ beliefs about the goals of learning. When goals are masteryoriented, students tend to put in more effort to master subject matter, when goals are performance-oriented, they tend to value outperforming or ‘besting’ others. x Students’ beliefs about self-efficacy. Students’ who feel they have a high capacity to respond make more effort at improving their work and reaching standards set. x Students’ beliefs about what work should be done. Those with a clear idea about what needs to be done to improve on work are more likely to engage in corrective action. To these, Kulhavy (1977:225) adds ‘students’ expectations of the outcome of teachers’ evaluation’. Learners with ‘high response confidence’ i.e. those who are sure their answers are correct spend little time on and gain little from feedback, since it only comes to confirm the correctness of their responses. But if teacher feedback turns out to be highlighting an answer different from the one the student was expecting, more student interest is aroused; the student will be curious to know the source of error, so will spend more time on teacher feedback. ‘High-confidence errors’, Kulhavy concludes, are the point at which feedback should play its greatest corrective role. The implication of Kulhavy’s thesis is far-reaching, and, if backed by empirical evidence, would be invaluable to teachers’ feedback practice. He has demonstrated that feedback is most useful when it addresses work and conduct judged to be unsatisfactory and unacceptable, but which students expected to be taken as acceptable. From his thesis, it is reasonable to also theorise that a student will also react to feedback under the condition of low-confidence response. That is, when s/he is unsure of the appropriateness of a response, having it confirmed by the teacher may stimulate in them sustainable reflection on the task and on the response itself because they may be interested in looking at the question again to see how they answered it. In conclusion, we note that the actions students take in reaction to teacher feedback become an integral part of the process of learning. Student action (positive or negative) will be determined by their commitment to learning, beliefs about learning goals, self-efficacy, corrective measures to be adopted and their expectations in relation to their answers. When action taken is positive, this is manifest of students’ endeavour to get involved in their learning which is likely to lead to learning gains.

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I will conclude this review with a few studies on the influence of sociocultural factors on the delivery and reception of feedback, beginning with the role of language.

2.7 The influence of socio-cultural factors on feedback provision and uptake Teachers are key to assessment and feedback in a classroom setting. However, speaking about schools in Sub-Saharan Africa, Sayed &Kanjee (2013:379) have observed that most teachers are unable to effectively use assessment information to assist learners in improving learning. Key reasons for this include limited teacher capacity and skills, excessive workloads, and large class sizes, which prevent teachers from providing learners with the type of support they require as indicated by assessment results. Taking the class size example, Blatchford laments that ‘there has been a lot of research, going back decades, seeking to identify aspects of effective teaching...but there has been relatively little interest in classroom contextual influences such as class size’ (2003:51). Blatchford reports research conducted in England by Galton et al (1996), where lessons taught by four teachers from the state-maintained sector were compared when teaching their own class, half their class, and a smaller class in a private school, and contrasted with five teachers from the independent sector teaching their own small class and a larger class in the maintained sector. The researchers claimed that in smaller classes there were more sustained interactions between teacher and child,...and more feedback on work. According to Blatchford, the teachers studied also reported that ‘monitoring, checking understanding, and offering appropriate feedback to individual children was more difficult in a larger class, implying that these were considered to be important aspects of teaching that, if neglected, have a detrimental effect on learning. Teachers valued being able to offer immediate feedback on children’s work and felt this was more difficult in a larger class’ (2003:54). Hill (2011:347) has also highlighted the importance of this issue by pointing that it is difficult to implement Assessment for Learning in large secondary schools. Findings from research into class size in the United States suggest that when classes are small major changes occur in students’ engagement in the classroom e.g. students’ ‘pro-social’ and ‘anti-social’ behaviour, which are related to academic performance (Finn et al, 2003). Class size is not the only impediment in feedback practice.

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The language in which feedback is mediated largely determines the degree of its receptivity. Adendorff (1998) reports a study into the code-switching behaviour of three Zulu-speaking teachers and their Principal, in an allBlack urban boarding high school in South Africa. His study shows how several aspects of school life, including the languages teachers use for classroom instruction, affect students’ learning. In particular, he shows how switching codes between English (a foreign language) and Zulu (the mother tongue) ‘enables teachers and students to accomplish a considerable number of educational and social objectives’ (p. 389). Justifying the use by teachers of Zulu for communication with students, Adendorff argues that certain characteristics of classrooms in KwaZuluNatal, a Province in South Africa, are likely to impede students’ understanding of teachers’ instructional and feedback discourse and thus, of lesson content, notably, the fact that lessons are conducted in English, a language that some of the students are not too competent in (p. 392). The researcher goes on to present several functions which he claims codeswitching plays in school life: first, it serves an academic function, getting instructional material across to students. For example, he observed that in English language, Geography and Biology lessons, teachers often resorted to Zulu because they felt that students do not understand what they say in English. Throughout, Zulu was the code with which they tried to clarify what had been said in English, meaning they were conscious of their students’ limited mastery of the language, and of the ability of the local language to reach everyone in the classroom. It is reported that the Geography teacher also preferred Zulu for feedback purposes - for approval and praise when students gave acceptable answers to questions in class - since Zulu carries a heavier, more pregnant meaning and more forceful praise content. Adendorff argues that ‘taken as a whole, the teacher’s affirmation of the student’s answer is about as rich as it can be. Were it coded in some language other than Zulu, however, the extent of its ‘richness’ would be considerably reduced’ (1998:397).This is an indication that language and feedback are inextricably linked together like two faces of the same coin; the very success of feedback itself is dependent upon language use in a community. The choice of language for classroom teaching is so important because the same remark given to a pupil may count as feedback (or at least, as more useful feedback) when given in one language and not as (relevant) feedback when given in another. This is so not necessarily because feedback is not understood linguistically in the second language but because students who are the intended recipients do not perceive it as the ‘right’ language in which they

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should be given feedback. The implication for education that Adendorff draws from the above is that non-standard forms of English e.g. South African Black English should be encouraged in schools as much as Standard English. Zungu (1998) and Chick (1998) express similar views. It is beneficial to have a repertoire of languages and language varieties from which to choose. If a given variety is what students consider a more suitable mediating tool for feedback (Adendorff’s 1998 study shows that, at times, this is the case), then it would be important from an educational perspective for this language to be used for literacy in schools. Now, away from issues related to language only, there is some research evidence showing that culture influences teaching and learning in schools. On ‘classroom climate’ as a determinant of feedback use, Cowie (2005) purports that lack of trust and mutual respect within a classroom might limit the disclosure of students’ thinking through questioning because of concerns about the potential for harm. Gamlem & Smith (2013:155) noted that a learning environment where students help and are supportive of one another, where student involvement is asked for and teacher support is provided seems to be highly appreciated by students. One of the most pivotal studies in this area is ‘Culture and Pedagogy’ (Alexander, 2000). It is the result of research work carried out over several years and in which the author, using a comparative approach, undertakes to describe the histories, educational systems and policies, school life and pedagogic practices of primary schools in five countries: England, France, the United States, India and Russia. These countries present the most diverse educational cultures and traditions and Alexander is quick to show how their separate cultural values affect teachers’ classroom practices. At the very outset, he observed that ‘…culture is not extraneous to the school…culture both drives and is everywhere manifested in what goes on in classrooms, from what you see on the walls to what you cannot see going on inside children’s heads’. As illustration, Alexander analyses different aspects of teachers’ classroom experience, including variations in assessment and feedback practices, some of which are important for this review. For example, comparing French and English teachers’ approaches to assessing children’s writing, Alexander, like Osborn & Planel (1999), found that French teachers expect correctness and conformity to a preestablished plan, while their English counterparts look for creativity and divergence. There is a possibility here that teaching in some French primary schools is very traditional and that children are often presented with tasks that require factual recall of information and for which there is only one correct answer. That they are expected to reproduce verbatim

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what they are taught rather than to be original and creative in their thinking, perhaps also reflects the view that, unlike in British and American societies, the belief in progressivism is not very popular in French society (at least, in primary education). Surely, this means that authorities in the schools Alexander studied have not yet recognised the advantages of promoting a culture that allows pupils to take some responsibility over their learning as early in their educational career as possible. Alexander (2000) also cited research findings by Sharp (1997) according to which French primary teachers tend to make greater use of negative language (criticism) and sanctions than do English teachers. That the latter tend to be mega-positive in their feedback practice reflects findings of an earlier study Alexander conducted in primary schools in Leeds, which revealed that teachers in the UK ‘had a pronounced tendency to be both generous and indiscriminatory in their use of praise’ (p. 369). According to him, this is in keeping with the prevailing professional ideology of the 1970s and 1980s in the UK when teachers were anxious never to discourage pupils. Seemingly, this ideology is also popular in the United States where Alexander (2000) noticed that teachers praised pupils much more freely and frequently than they did in Russia, India and France. What we can infer from this is that most often, teachers in the UK and US primary classes studied succeed in creating a warm and friendly atmosphere during lessons that is likely to result in positive attitudes in their pupils. What we cannot be certain about is whether these pupils also make cognitive learning gains from feedback. If their teachers typically deployed significantly large amounts of praise compared to other feedback forms, and if we also consider that the praise they provided was ‘without a follow-up of a more informative and task-focused kind’ as Alexander (2000:375) asserts, then it is possible to suggest that the teachers were not offering students enough opportunities to promote their cognitive skill development. Apparently, only little research has been conducted on socio-cultural influences on feedback practice in relation to learning. Hattie (2001) acknowledges the paucity in research of studies of this kind. Nevertheless, he makes cursory reference to Deluque & Sommer (2000), one of the few studies that investigated the influence of students’ cultural background on the amount and effectiveness of feedback teachers provide. Deluque & Sommer claimed that ‘students from collectivist cultures’ e.g. Asian and South Pacific nations preferred indirect, implicit and more group focused

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feedback. Probably, these students hail from cultures that have made them more reserved, less outspoken, less daring and more of introverts in class. It is predictable, as the authors claim, that they also preferred ‘no self-level feedback’ which may be embarrassing to them especially when it is negative, as in punishment. On the other hand, ‘students from individualistic cultures’ e.g. the U.S.A. who, probably, are a lot more carefree, less timid and more extrovert preferred more direct, individual focused feedback and were more likely to use direct inquiry to seek feedback from teachers.

2.8 Conclusion: Research Question Revisited The studies reviewed show that earlier research has investigated the relationship between feedback and learning both qualitatively and quantitatively. This research, however, is not without limitations. For example, the majority of studies that looked at the effectiveness of feedback in relation to learning are experimental, with doubtful ecological validity; their results may have little relevance for classroom practice. In addition, some of the findings and conclusions about how feedback affects learning are the product of non-empirical meta-analyses of previous works by others (e.g. Kulhavy, 1977; Black & Wiliam, 1998; James, 1998; Hattie, 2001), although this alone does not in any way undermine their importance. The credibility of the conclusions would have been a lot more enhanced had they been the outcome of empirical research carried out by the authors themselves, who, presumably, would have had a hands-on experience of feedback at work in classrooms. One of the few empirical studies in the area is the one conducted by Tunstall & Gipps (1996a), but as they conclude, their aim was not ‘to analyse each feedback type in great detail or to assess the impact of each on pupil learning’ (p. 403). Above all, not much attention has been given in feedback literature to socio-cultural conditions under which feedback relates either positively or negatively to learning. It is easy to claim that teachers provide feedback as part of classroom activity involving assessment and with the intention of making students learn from it. But whether or not students get it and make use of it is a more important question which, to a considerable extent, determines the usefulness and effectiveness of feedback. The instructionassessment-feedback cycle would be completed only when information about knowledge of results is translated into concrete action by those to whom the information is addressed. It is because contextual issues do not seem to have been sufficiently acknowledged in research that I

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reformulated the research question on feedback and learning that guided this book, to include the important aspect of context in the following a) general and b) sub research question (s): A) General Research Question: What is the relationship between the feedback students get from teachers and students’ learning, within the context of Anglophone Cameroon secondary schools? B) Sub research questions: 1. What types of feedback do teachers give students orally during lessons and on their assessed written work?3 2. How do teachers and students conceptualise, interpret and understand the concept of feedback and its meanings, purposes and intentions? 3. How useful to students’ learning is each feedback type teachers make use of? 4. In what ways does the socio-cultural context of Anglophone Cameroon influence teachers’ provision and students’ reception and use of feedback? In the next chapter dealing with methodology, I return to the question of context and its influence on the feedback for learning process, to show how research instruments were designed to collect the data for the research reported in this book and the analytical framework within which each type of data was interpreted.

3

It is assumed here that teachers in secondary classrooms may make use of some or all of the feedback types or categories I classified in Appendix 1, even though their feedback options may indeed extend beyond these. The teacher’s feedback action may be consciously or unconsciously motivated in the sense that s/he may or may not know they are providing feedback. However, what is important for the question asked here is whether or not they make use of the mentioned preestablished and pre-tabulated feedback forms and any other forms not accounted for by the observation record.

CHAPTER THREE INVESTIGATING TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK PRACTICE AND STUDENTS’ LEARNING IN ANGLOPHONE CAMEROON SECONDARY SCHOOLS

3.0 Introduction In Chapter 2, I pursued the idea that socio-cultural elements are essential features of the educational and classroom settings in which feedback and learning operate, and directly and indirectly influence the way classroom practitioners interpret actions taken in terms of feedback and learning. In this chapter, I aim to discuss the main features of the research strategy and design adopted to investigate these key concepts: the sample studied and sampling procedures, data-gathering instruments and procedures, access into research settings, ethical issues raised by the study and data analysis techniques used. Practicability problems will be introduced in the discussion when appropriate. I start with a critical overview of the paradigm that underpins the research reported in this book.

3.1 Paradigmatic considerations in the research ‘Paradigms are crucial; no inquirer ought to go about the business of inquiry without being clear just what paradigm informs and guides his or her approach’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994:116). In keeping with the sociocultural approach to the research question, this section intends to make the case for the predominant use of qualitative methods in this research: classroom observations, interviews, documentary research, grounded in the post-positivist and especially interpretivist paradigms. A survey of educational research environments in the developing world (Shaeffer & Nkinyangi, 1983) suggests that with the exception of a few isolated cases, the use of qualitative research methods is still as underdeveloped as the countries themselves. Following this, Shaeffer (1986) has noted: ‘In much

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of the developing world, traditional research is largely empirical and quantitative, characterised by the development of standardized tests and questionnaires, the production of data from large samples of schools and individuals, and the analysis of these data by a variety of statistical methods. (1983:5). One consequence of this, Vulliamy et al (1990) assert, is that there has been some educational research questions in developing countries for which a quantitative research strategy has been applied when either a qualitative one or a combination of the two would have been more appropriate. In addition, some research questions have rarely been addressed at all despite their potential relevance to both the process of policy making, and to the more theoretical study of schooling in the developing world (1990:18). So, some questions remain under-researched because many people are not skilled in the methodological approaches required to investigate them. This probably accounts for why no research in Cameroon has yet inquired into teachers’ feedback and its role in student learning. In a sense then, the nature of the research question investigated and how it is meant to be operationalised determine paradigm choice. In the context of the research presented in this book, even if it were possible to quantitatively measure the cause and effect relationships between feedback and learning in an experimental design as some researchers have done (e.g. Butler, 1987), it would be difficult to use a similar design to gain access into students’ and teachers’ opinions on, or their understanding of, feedback and the purposes and intentions teachers attach to it. Neither would survey and experimental studies be appropriate to investigate the impact of contextual aspects like the linguistic or socio cultural realities of the setting studied, on the feedback for learning relationship. It is only through the researcher’s presence in the natural setting and direct contact with the researched that information about peoples’ ‘lived experiences’ can be fully collected, for example, through observations and interviews that sociocultural theorists like Aljafreeh & Lantolf (1994) adopt in their empirical investigations. We know that unlike natural objects, human beings themselves are able to interpret situations and give meaning to them (Phillips & Burbules, 2000:5). The implication for social science research (including this one) is that inquirers have to observe and interact with the subjects of their study and qualitative strategies best guarantee this. The problem with more traditional research methods such as questionnaires and experiments, as Vulliamy et al have rightly stated, is that they are unlikely to give an

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accurate portrayal of the reality of teaching in a natural or conventional setting. In other words, they lack what is referred to as ‘ecological validity’ (1990:12). On the contrary, and in defence of qualitatively generated data, Manen (1977) maintains that ‘qualitative data with emphasis on peoples’ lived experiences are fundamentally well suited to locate the meanings people place on events, processes and structures of their lives: their perceptions, assumptions, prejudgments, pre-suppositions and for connecting these meanings to the social world around them’. Educational research in developing countries, particularly in African countries where classrooms abound with experiences and problems that are not easily interpretable from an outsider’s point of view, should therefore make use of qualitative approaches to provide more detailed and real-life accounts of such experiences e.g. descriptions of how teachers interact with students and what role feedback plays in this interaction. This far, the argument has been in defence of the appropriateness of the choice of qualitative research methods grounded in interpretivist paradigms to investigate my particular research question. The intention, however, was not to undermine the usefulness of quantitative methods. In fact, the discussion of data collection instruments later in this chapter will reveal that my approach to classroom observation was both qualitative and quantitative. I was influenced by some tenets of positivism and especially the belief in collecting data in as objective and reliable a way as possible. Therefore, rather than appearing to be self-contradictory in choosing a quantitatively-focused data gathering method in a predominantly qualitative research paradigm, I am taking issue with Phillips & Burbules’ view that even when researching the subjective world of human experience full of uncertainties through observations and interviews, post positivists should endeavour to commit themselves to the notion of objectivity, rather than to subjectivity and bias (2000:5). It is also being argued that the investigation of some research questions can only usefully be carried out using a combination of quantitative and qualitative strategies, not only does each have their own peculiar strengths and weaknesses but, as was mentioned before, the relative appropriateness of these approaches depends crucially upon the nature of the research question being asked (Bryman & Warwick, 1983). This is the case particularly of one of the sub research questions asked at the end of Chapter 2, regarding the types and relative frequency of feedback teachers give students in their interaction with them during lessons. I take the view that what an observer can describe ‘objectively’ and what a student

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‘subjectively’ perceives as happening in her classroom can be two different versions of the same reality. The combined use of systematic observation techniques and semi-structured interviews, for instance, will result in a more balanced account of the reality studied. Finally, as Bryman (1984, 1988) has argued, the widespread debate as to the relative merits of quantitative and qualitative approaches in social and educational research has generally been confused by a failure to differentiate choices in epistemology from those of data collection and analysis techniques. Many have taken issue with Bryman that both approaches could be valuable in any one study and for more or less similar reasons. x Different methods and techniques can be mixed successfully within a research strategy irrespective of the philosophical tradition subsuming the study (Guba & Lincoln, 1988). x ‘Quantitative data are not incommensurable with qualitative data…we have to face the fact that numbers and words are both needed for us to understand the world’ (Miles & Huberman, 1994:40). x ‘The issue is one of knowing when it is useful to count and when it is difficult or inappropriate to count at all’ (Gherardi & Turner, 1987:208). Therefore, if a given reality needs to be described in terms of quantity and quality in order to answer a research question satisfactorily, no harm will be done in so doing. This section considered reasons why qualitative research methods grounded in interpretivist paradigms have been given prominence in the research reported in this book, and also why, despite this, it was considered useful to include quantitative methods in data collection as well. The next section discusses the research strategy.

3.2 Research strategy: The case study method The case study methodology is essentially one of inquiry in which the researcher seeks evidence to describe, understand and explain the case(s) studied, rather than to test a hypothesis. This is the approach I adopted in this, the intention being to describe and analyse teachers’ feedback practice in secondary schools in Cameroon, to explain how it works to promote or not to promote learning, and to enable an understanding of how the feedback concept operates in schools in general. Rather than opting for a single-case study to research this question, I conducted a

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multiple case study involving three different cases, while still operating within the same research strategy. Yin (1994:44) agrees that ‘the difference between single and multiple-case studies is one of design rather than of methodology or strategy’ and that both single and multiple-case study designs are variants that ‘operate within the same case study strategy’. A case study approach was suitable for this study given the exploratory nature of research questions asked. The approach also allows in-depth study and comprehensive understanding of phenomena studied within a particular case or group of cases. This characteristic contrasts it with other research strategies like survey research and experiments (Gomme et al, 2000:1). It also means effectively that the single-case study earlier I conducted (see Tangie, 2015) was not meant to be an entity or an end in itself, but rather a means to an end, an initial step in a continuous research process. The research reported here was intended to pursue the objectives laid out at the start of the baseline study. Further justifications have been given in research in support of multi-case study designs: x Evidence from multiple-case studies is often considered more compelling and the overall study is therefore considered as being more robust (Yin, 1994:141); x A multiple-case or a ‘comparative case study’ seeks regularities through the simultaneous inspection of numerous cases (Eckstein, 2000:137); x ‘All other things being equal, a finding emerging repeatedly in the study of numerous sites (a ‘multi-site study’) would appear to be more likely to be a good working hypothesis about some as yet unstudied site than a finding emerging from just one or two sites’ (Schofield, 2000:79); x Though conducting multi-site studies is cost-ineffective and timeconsuming, a finding emerging from the study of several heterogeneous sites would be more robust and thus more likely to be useful in understanding various other sites than one emerging from the study of several similar sites (Kennedy, 1979:662). As the research design will show, research samples were drawn from sites that are dissimilar to one another in a number of ways.

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3.3 Research design and sampling Institutions and participants I adopted an ‘embedded multiple-case study design’ (Yin, 1994:51) involving three schools and Form 41 students and their teachers within each school (Fig. 3.1). The schools selected were: Private College of Arts and Science, John the Baptist Secondary School, and Government High School. It was considered appropriate to target students who would have participated in lessons, had their work assessed sufficiently, had the opportunity to form opinions and attitudes about how their work is assessed and graded either orally or in writing, and who would have been adequately mature physically and linguistically to articulate suitable responses in interviews. I chose to work only with schools offering general education subjects2 because selecting only schools of this type will ensure that differences (if any) in feedback practice across schools researched will not be the result of the type of education (general, vocational, teacher training) that each offers. All participating schools were drawn from one of the two English-speaking provinces in the country, the South West 1

Equivalent to Year 10 students in the UK, the majority of whom are 15-16 year olds in their fourth year of secondary education. In English-speaking Cameroon, secondary education begins at the age of 12 or 13 and earlier for the few children who begin primary school at four years of age. It comprises two cycles: the first comprising forms 1-5 culminates in students sitting for the General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE ‘O’ Level) which paves the way for high school studies. The second comprises lower and upper sixth forms and lasts two years at the end of which students sit for the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE ‘A’ Level) that paves the way for university and other higher education studies. This is true only of students following the ‘grammar’ route or ‘general education’. Those who follow the ‘technical/vocational’ route have two options. After studying for four years in the first cycle and for three years in the second, they either sit respectively for the GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level Technical examinations, or for the ‘Certificat d’Aptitude Professionnel’, the ‘Probatoire’ and the ‘Baccalauréat’ 2 Secondary education in Cameroon comprises general education, vocational and professional education, and teacher training. The objective of general education provided by Colleges and High Schools, as Tsafak (2000:70) puts it, is to make available to students knowledge in the domains of Arts and Sciences that will develop their skills in these areas in preparation for higher-level studies. Arts and Science subjects offered in the curriculum include English and French languages and literatures, History, Geography, Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Home Economics, Mathematics, Geology, Philosophy, Civics, Religious Knowledge, Physical and Sports Education and Agriculture.

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Province. Travel limitations and insufficient funds made it difficult to cover the other Anglophone province, the North West province. However, the educational system in both provinces is essentially the same. Even though findings from a study of many cases are more compelling and convincing as was mentioned earlier, it is appropriate to keep the sample size of schools at a reasonable number, three. Gomm et al (2000:1) approve of this, adding that ‘other things being equal, the fewer the cases investigated the more information can be collected about each one of them’. Of the three schools studied, two were selected from an urban area (JBSS & GHS) and one from a rural area (PCAS); GHS is a state-owned (called ‘public’ or ‘government’) school, PCAS, a ‘lay-private’ institution and JBSS, a church-owned, also known as ‘mission’ school.3 It is aimed that proposals to be made at the end of this book (concerning the type of feedback practice to be encouraged to promote student learning) should be implementable in all secondary schools in Anglophone Cameroon and elsewhere offering general education, irrespective of where they are located and who owns and manages them. Secondly, excluding any one category of such schools will not make it possible to find out whether or not secondary schools offering general education differ in the range, quantity and quality of feedback they give students. Diversity in the selection of schools was therefore in keeping with an earlier decision to select those with heterogeneous characteristics that will provide a basis for cross-case analysis.

3

The Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon provides for state control of secondary education, though private entrepreneurs (single and corporate) and religious bodies (mainly Catholics, Protestants, and Moslems) also assist the Government in this role (Kalla-Kale & Yembe, 1980: 324).

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Fig. 3.1 Main features of research design

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Criteria for selection of participants To some extent, selection of participating schools was purposive, based on previous familiarity with authorities at the institutions, proximity to my research base, the University of Buea, accessibility considering the poor state of most roads in Cameroon, and schools’ demonstrated willingness to be part of the study. Burns (2000:465) confirms that purposive sampling is useful if it ‘serves the real purpose and objectives of the researcher by enabling him to discover, gain insight and understanding into a particular phenomenon’. However, selection to another extent was based on the ‘sampling logic’ or ‘those that are representative of the total population of similar cases (Yin, 1994:47). Even though many have argued against this latter sampling method in case study research on grounds that such research is no more concerned with generalisation via representative sampling as with generation of theoretical insights (see Yin, 1989, 1994; Gomm et al 2000), it is my view that an attempt be made in qualitative studies to consider the extent to, and conditions under which findings from a given number of cases studied can have resonance on the smaller, if not wider population of cases from which samples were drawn. In this regard, I opted to work with three schools typical of and drawn from the total of state, church and private schools in Fako Division in Cameroon, that also meet the afore-mentioned purposive criteria of familiarity, proximity and willingness. In all, six teachers participated in the study with two drawn from each of the three schools. The teachers are both male and female and present a profile of teaching experience roughly representative of teachers in their respective schools. Originally, the intention was to select an equal number of male and female staff in each school to achieve a balanced representation of each gender type in the sample. This, unfortunately, was not possible when I discovered that as a matter of policy, the private school does not employ female staff. This explains why participating teachers in the study consisted of four males and two females (see Figure 3.1 above) and this imbalance weakens this study methodologically. Subject speciality was important as well since, in all, I elected to research feedback in three curriculum subjects: English language (chosen on the basis of the importance of language as the principal mediating tool for feedback), Geography and Chemistry (both chosen arbitrarily to represent the wider subject areas of Arts and Sciences). Only two of these were to count for observation in each school i.e. a combination of either English and Geography or English and Chemistry. Assuming that school heads were more knowledgeable about each potential participant teacher to

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match their suitability for the study with given criteria of gender, level of experience and subject taught, they were requested to propose a list of teachers from which I selected the required number. I return to this issue in more detail in section 3.5.1 where I discuss how access into the schools was negotiated. A total of 12 students of both sexes (4 from each school) were selected from six Form 4 classes on the basis of teachers’ recommendations. In each school, sampled teachers were asked to select only students offering both subjects chosen for observation within their school, and to select two high and two low-achieving students for study. They were asked to rate all the children in their classes according to overall academic ability and subject attainment in their first term’s work before making their choices. On the basis of these ratings, 6 of the 12 students teachers proposed (one high and one low achiever per school), were randomly chosen to take part in the study. Teachers were also asked to choose those likely to be present throughout the research period and to make suitable replacements should any drop out of the study for whatever unforeseen reasons. The other students recommended within each school, but not initially selected to participate, were expected to be useful in such circumstances. Of the six students finally selected, those in GHS turned out to be all girls, those in JBSS all boys and those in PCAS a mixture of boys and girls. This disharmony was not considered problematic in any way since gender was not a very important factor in the selection of student participants. For instance, the issue of what proportion of feedback teachers address to boys compared to girls during lessons is not of primary interest to the research conducted, and it is hoped that any emerging data related to this issue would not have problematic consequences for findings to be reported in the next chapter. Instruments used in collecting information from research participants will be the next subject of discussion.

3.4 Data gathering instruments In a typically ‘multi-method embedded case study’ (Burton, 2000:219), data for this research was collected using a varied array of methods: classroom observations, documentary research, interviews and testing. I also kept a fieldwork notebook in which I diarised pieces of relevant information collected informally. Using multiple methods was advantageous in three ways.

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1) They generated multiple accounts representing different perspectives (teachers’, students’) of the phenomenon under study for the purpose of triangulation. Through observational and multiperspective interview data, it was possible to find out similarities and differences in the way teachers and students conceptualise feedback, what teachers say they do in class, what students think their teachers do and what teachers were observed to be doing in terms of feedback. 2) Collecting multiple measures of the same phenomenon addresses the problem of reliability and validity (Yin, 1989:97; Miles & Huberman, 1994:41). 3) Varied sources of evidence allowed a broader coverage of issues e.g. oral and written feedback practices, self accounts of the relative usefulness of certain feedback forms as perceived by actors researched. Researchers operating according to interpretivist traditions and socio-cultural theory tend to observe phenomena in their natural settings of occurrence and in so doing, tend to put the subjects of their research at the very centre of their studies and to take their voices into consideration when describing the phenomena they study. Each data collection method will now be examined beginning with the schedule used during classroom observation. I will examine why it was crucial to observe teachers and students interacting with one another during lessons.

3.4.1 Classroom observation Purpose of observing classrooms Teachers’ spoken and written language in instructional conversations is a key issue in socio-cultural theory. Since this book is concerned with teachers’ feedback practice mediated through language, it was necessary to observe exactly how they deploy feedback orally and in writing during lessons. Further, observation, be it structured or otherwise, enables the researcher to offer an account of naturally occurring happenings as witnessed firsthand, which enhances credibility in the descriptions made thereof. An interpretation of classroom realities as they naturally occur therefore requires the presence of an observer if s/he intends to get rich information and a human feel of what happens in classrooms, which would otherwise not be obtained through audio and audio-visual materials only.

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With the risk of subjectivity the human observer captures the depth of the social meaning of participants’ actions (Borg & Gall, 1979). The purpose of observing classroom practices was two-fold: x To determine the types and incidence of feedback forms Cameroonian secondary teachers verbally deployed during lessons in response to students’ academic contributions and conduct4; x To obtain evidence (if possible) of what selected students under study were saying and doing about teachers’ feedback during cooperative problem-solving activities of the type that Cohen (1994) and McCarthey & McMahon (1992) describe. Thus, the units of analysis for classroom observations are teachers’ utterances that were coded as feedback events during lessons and students’ utterances in response to teachers’ feedback. It was hoped that feedback practices documented through observations would enable me to place teachers at different points along the ‘feedback continuum’ mentioned by Tunstall & Gipps (1996a,b) i.e. placing some teachers, according to data collected, at the ‘evaluative’ positive and negative extreme of the continuum (according to whether they predominantly provide positive and negative feedback forms respectively), and classifying others with a preponderance of more formative ‘descriptive’ feedback forms differently. It was considered more appropriate to investigate the above issues in a systematic rather than in an unstructured fashion. Suitability of systematic observation By Systematic observation, I imply the process in which an observer or group of observers devise a systematic set of rules for recording and classifying events. The basic purpose of observing systematically is to identify, clarify, quantify, analyse and interpret classroom activity in a 4

The assumption here is that teachers’ feedback reactions occur as part of what Sinclair & Coulthard (1975) refer to as an Initiation, Response, Feedback (IRF) exchange. This exchange structure is one of the characteristics of classroom talk that differentiates it most sharply from the structure of everyday conversation where when we answer a question, we do not expect the questioner to tell us that our answer is right or wrong. Since this study is about teachers’ feedback, what counted for observations was not the IRF exchanges in their entirety but the last component in the interactional sequence, namely, feedback utterances and actions.

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way that is both accurate (valid and reliable) and objective (Gage, 1963:62). The type of observation a researcher adopts depends very much on his or her subjective opinion about what they consider important in classrooms to be observed, as far as research questions asked are concerned. Many have made the case for structured observations in classroom research. Hook (1990:28) for instance, argues that ‘for observation to be of value…it should be systematically planned and carried out’. Croll (1986:4) emphasises that ‘systematic classroom observation attempts to arrive at a description of classrooms which … remove part of the subjectivity which occurs when individuals describe events’. Further, Selltiz et al (1976:252) rightly point that, ‘Observation becomes a scientific technique when it a) serves a formulated research purpose, b) is planned systematically, c) is recorded systematically, and d) is subjected to checks and controls on validity and reliability. In summary then, systematic observation allows for a more plausible claim to objectivity, validity, rigour and (high) value in research than other observational methods. I must re-emphasise that the choice of this quantitative technique that is more akin to behaviourist approaches only reflects my concern for objectivity in data collection, not a departure from the more important socio-cultural stance of the study reported here. Certainly, the claim here is not to attempt measuring and describing the entire complex web of succeeding classroom realities because this would be a vain and futile enterprise for reasons best explained by Good & Brophy (1981:147): ‘The sheer physical complexity of the classroom can, at times, prevent us from seeing certain events. No observer, as a result, can monitor everything that takes place in the classroom’. Rather, the claim is to attempt a fairly accurate presentation of teachers’ feedback practice observed. McIntyre (1980:14) succinctly captures what exactly I hoped to do in such a presentation: ‘Systematic observers whose aim is to describe some aspect of classroom activity generally aspire to produce a true account of what happens in classrooms they observe; not the whole truth, but certainly nothing but the truth’. Perhaps most importantly, some aspects of the ‘behavioural approach to teaching’ that underlies this study make it appropriate to incorporate a systematic observation within it. For example, the approach involves precision of types of observable behaviour that can be easily identified, counted and coded, like scolding a child, giving another a reward, etc. This approach is therefore suitable if a researcher is concerned with describing such phenomena as naturally occurring behavioural patterns. To take the

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example of scolding a child, what was of interest during observations is whether a particular utterance or gesture occurred in interactions that I could interpret as a scold given the way this feedback category had been defined in the study. It is not so important whether the act of scolding constitutes one form of feedback in the Cameroonian context but not in another context, or whether the way scolding affects learning in secondary classrooms in Cameroon differs from the way it does in other geographical and/or educational settings. Since I already knew those aspects of planned classroom research activity which were likely to be relevant for my purposes in the study, I was in a position to develop a specific plan for recording behaviour before beginning data collection. As Croll (1986:1) affirms, describing classrooms may involve abstracting from their range of activities certain aspects relevant for particular purposes. Selltiz et al (1976:279) explain that ‘although social scientists have little, if any control over what happens in settings studied and cannot predict the course events will take, they can determine in advance what kinds of behaviour should be observed if they are to get information required to answer research questions’. For this reason, I used the Teacher Feedback Behaviour Observation Schedule (T. F. B. O. S.) that I had designed and piloted during an earlier study into teachers’ feedback practice in English classrooms (see Tangie, 2015) and which I will describe next, to collect observational data in Cameroon. The observation schedule (T.F.B.O.S.) T. F. B. O. S. was designed to determine the types and incidence of feedback teachers verbally deploy during lessons in response to students’ academic contributions or conduct, and the relative frequency of each category. It is a ‘category system’ defined by Rosenshine & Furst as one that provides the observer with a list of categories or scales into which events are to be coded (1973:131). This system limits the observation to one segment or aspect of classroom behaviour, determines a convenient unit of behaviour and constructs a finite set of categories into which units of behaviour observed can be classified. T.F.B.O.S. which had previously been piloted and checked for validity and which worked well in collecting the required data, is equally a ‘composite system’ (Simon & Boyer, 1974:87), made principally of selected but modified categories from the Brophy & Good (1969), Hough (1967), Amidon & Hunter (1966), and Wragg (1973) observation systems. These observation systems have been brought together in the collections Mirrors for Behaviour III (Simon &

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Boyer, 1974), and British Mirrors (Galton, 1978); their authors gave definitions to categories similar to the ones adopted for the research reported here. For a useful discussion of other types of systematic observational instruments e.g. the rating scale, the sign system, checklists and other quantitative methods, see Rosenshine & Furst; 1973; Hook, 1990; Wragg, 1999). These systems have been used and checked for validity in a wide variety of interactive settings of which the classroom is but one. They contain many categories that are descriptors of observable behaviours. Of the myriad of possibilities, the categories I chose to use are ones which occur quite consistently throughout the literature, and ones which appear to have relatively common referents when used by different authors. Tape-recording of teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil dialogue accompanied the use of the observation record. The issue of making recordings in classrooms is complex but particularly difficult to handle in classrooms in Cameroon because of large student numbers (typically of between 60 and 80 in secondary schools). Given this and coupled with the level of background conversational noise, the amount of feedback discourse that can be heard by a researcher without recourse to obtrusive instruments like tape-recorders and microphones is likely to be very limited and largely confined to feedback given to the whole class. Hook (1990:15) supports the use of tape-recorders in classrooms ‘to obtain a good sound record of observed events that can be replayed several times for discussion, analysis or corroboration of written accounts’.

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Flat Acceptance

Partial Acceptance

Probe

Clue

1

2

3

4

RESPONSE

10

20

performance 30

40

50

60

Time start:

10

20

30

40

50

Feedback on pupil social behaviour

Subject:

60

Time end:

Ind./Grp./Cla.

Feedback on pupil academic

Day/Date:

Feedback categories

Class size:

Undetermined

Class:

Time Intervals (minutes)

School:

OBSERVATION SCHEDULE FOR TEACHER FEEDBACK BEHAVIOUR IN THE CLASSROOM

Fig 3.2 TFBOS

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Categorical Refusal

Refusal / Repeat

6

7

Simple Praise

Extended Praise

Reward

Direct Correction

Indirect Correction

Advice

8

9

1o

11

12

13

INITIATION/RESP.

Encouragement

5

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Punishment

Warning / Threat

No Explicit Feedback

Unidentified

15

16

17

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Codes: Feedback directed to one individual (I); Feedback directed to group of individuals (G); Feedback directed to whole class (C)

Criticism

14

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While using the observation schedule in the earlier pilot study (Tangie, 2015), I faced a problem picking up individual-focused feedback statements from teachers when they circulated in the class to supervise students during seatwork. Some of them wandered off far away from myself and the tape recorder while others spoke too low to be heard. I considered this a serious problem if not attended to because final descriptions of feedback in such situations will not take into account what goes on unheard or unnoticed. I decided thereafter to introduce a mini microphone attached to teachers’ dresses to pick up and transmit sounds to the tape-recorder from every angle they found themselves in classrooms. Note-taking of overheard feedback was used as a subsidiary activity to support tape-recording of classroom dialogue. Observational notes made to accompany recordings were conducted on a more qualitative, openended, though pre-structured fashion on the observation record sheet to obtain contextual details that were later put together with the transcripts of dialogue for analysis. Examples of these aspects of contexts will be given below in the discussion of key constructs of the observation schedule. Methods of structured observation are often criticised for inability to document the wealth of unquantifiable situational information generated in classrooms (Croll, 1986) and open-ended notes can fill the vacuum they create. The variables and categories of the observation schedule will now be discussed in detail. Key constructs of the observation schedule T.F.B.O.S is an eighteen-category system designed to capture a wide range of verbal feedback categories in teacher utterances. Most of the categories are, in principle, defined to be mutually exclusive so that they can each stand for a single and precise teacher behaviour that is observable and codable. In some instances, however, a particular behaviour may correspond to two categories. Table 3.1 summarises the definitions and operational examples of variables and categories. A fuller account of these can be found in Appendix 1 at the end of this book.The record comprises a major variable ‘Teacher feedback behaviour’ split into ‘Response’ and ‘Initiation/Response’. Categories numbered 1-18 ranging from ‘Flat acceptance’ to ‘Unidentified’ are classified under these variables and positioned in the left horizontal rows of the schedule. At the centre are found two sub variables, ‘academic performance’ and ‘social behaviour’ representing skills and behaviours assessed and on which feedback is provided. Running across the top are time intervals from start to end of lessons indicating a maximum total of 60 minutes duration per lesson.

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Table 3.1: Synoptic description of variables and categories Main variable studied, teacher feedback behaviour (‘teacher feedback reaction’, Brophy & Good), represents all teacher utterances with feedback content. It is sub-divided as follows: 1) ‘Response’ (‘teacher response’, Amidon & Hunter), refers to any utterance that necessarily involves verbal exchange between teachers and pupils. 2) ‘Initiation’ (‘teacher initiated talk’, Amidon & Hunter) refers to utterances started by the teacher that do not necessarily solicit pupil response. ‘Response’ comprises 7 categories numbered 1-7 on Fig. 3.2. -‘Flat acceptance’ (‘affirmation of correct responses’, Brophy & Good), refers to teacher statements that positively evaluate and fully acknowledge the validity of a pupil’s academic performance or behaviour e.g. ‘Yes, that’s right’. -‘Partial acceptance’ (‘part correct’, Brophy & Good), refers to teacher reactions that positively evaluate but only partially accept the validity of a pupil’s academic work or behaviour e.g. ‘I agree with you but not entirely’. -‘Probe’ refers to utterances that challenge pupils to extend or elaborate on their responses e.g. ‘What do you mean, Paul? -‘Clue’ (‘rephrase or clue’, Brophy & Good), denotes teacher statements that guide pupils towards particular desirable responses e.g. leading statement, prompts. -‘Encouragement’ (‘prompt’, Sinclair & Coulthard), denotes statements that urge or compel pupils to make contributions when they hesitate or when they declare ignorance about answers to questions e.g. ‘Come on Peter, give it a try’. -‘Categorical refusal’ (‘negation of incorrect answers’, Brophy & Good), refers to utterances that reject the validity of a pupil’s work or behaviour e.g. ‘Not correct’.

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-‘Refusal/repeat’ refers to instances where a teacher rejects a pupil’s contributions but gives them another chance for self-correction e.g. ‘Absolutely not, try again, Marie’. ‘Initiation/Response’ grouped together refer collectively to utterances in reaction to pupils’ on-going or previous work and behaviour that may and may not involve interchanges between teachers and pupils, since the latter may or may not be expected to respond to such utterances. They comprise 10 categories numbered 8-18 on Fig.3.2. -‘Simple praise’ (‘praise’, Brophy & Good), refers to simple statements that positively evaluate and commend pupil’s work or behaviour e.g. ‘Well done, Lucy!’ -‘Extended praise’ (‘elaborate praise’, Brophy & Good), denotes longer statements that positively evaluate and appreciate pupil’s work or behaviour e.g. ‘That’s really wonderful, John’. -‘Reward’ refers to material objects, credits, etc teachers provide or promise in exchange for good work and behaviour from pupils.

- ‘Direct correction’ (‘gives answer’, Brophy & Good), refers to utterances in which the teacher provides the correct response himself when pupils fail to do so. -‘Indirect correction’ (‘asks other’, Brophy & Good), denotes utterances where the teacher asks someone to provide an expected answer when a first pupil fails to do so e.g. ‘Susan, can you help Tim with the answer? -‘Advice’ (‘corrective feedback’, Hough), denotes utterances where a teacher shows that a pupil’s response or behaviour is wrong and how it can be improved. - ‘Criticism’ (‘criticism’, Brophy & Good), refers to statements that indicate teachers’ dissatisfaction with pupils’ work and behaviour e.g. ‘You’re the worst class I’ve ever had’. -‘Punishment’ (‘punishment’, Wragg), refers to statements or actions after teachers’ disapproval that cause pupils to suffer consequences of the undesirable work or behaviour e.g. ‘Patience, you are suspended from lessons’.

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-‘Warning/Threat’ refers to statements that make students aware of the dangers of continuing with an undesirable work or behaviour e.g. ‘If you don’t improve on your scores you’ll be dismissed’. -‘No Explicit Feedback’ (‘no feedback reaction’, Brophy & Good), denotes no verbal teacher reaction to pupil contribution or behaviour, so absence of feedback. -‘Unidentified’ refers to emerging feedback categories not represented on the schedule.

The observation record also contains a category, ‘Undetermined’ positioned at the top right vertical column. It represents any teacher talk whose audience cannot be determined by the observer. Given the relevance of context in the feedback for learning relationship and in the socio-cultural approach to the study of this relationship, the schedule allows for the identification of contextual information showing the school, class, duration of lesson, the date of observation, the time the observation begins and ends, the audiences of feedback (individuals, group of pupils, whole class), teaching and learning activities organised that included the provision and use of assessment feedback, and any other issue perceived as relevant to the understanding of the feedback for learning relationship e.g. the number of students in attendance and possible effects on feedback for learning, instances when students made use of Pidgin English in class, or when teachers interacted with students during problem-solving activities in a way that suggested they were working in partnership to jointly construct learning out of the tasks students had been asked to perform. The decision to account for context-related issues was also important because, as Wragg (1999:10) asserts, ‘While the counting of events may offer some interesting insights, it falls short of telling the whole story of classroom life. Each event must be placed and interpreted within the context of its occurrence’. It was with the same considerations in mind that I provided space at the bottom of the schedule to cater for other variables and categories that might emerge during observations. The next section addresses issues related to the reliability of the observational study.

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Reliability of classroom observations Since coding classroom events systematically using a category system involves assigning particular events or episodes to pre-established categories, this activity is unavoidably subjective if the decision to assign events to categories is based on the judgements of a lone researcher, which seriously undermines the claims to objectivity in structured observations. For this reason, the question is always asked whether or not two observers independently using the same observation record for the same purposes, either simultaneously or at different times, will arrive at similar, if not identical findings (Wheldall & Merrett, 1984a; Wragg, 1999:55). If this were so, it would indicate that both coders were uniformly interpreting the coding system and its rules and the resulting descriptions of observed occurrences would be considered reliable. Consequently, readers of the description would be convinced of what the findings mean, how they were arrived at, and their independence from the idiosyncrasies and subjective judgements, preferences and biases of coders, even if they (readers) disagree with decisions regarding coding rules and operational definitions of categories. The concept of reliability, then, becomes crucially important to studies involving systematic observation.

The meaning of reliability adopted Reliability has variously been defined as 1) the consistency with which something is measured by similar methods; 2) the replicability and consistency of the measures obtained by a system. That is, the system being able to provide ‘the same score or measure for repeated applications to the same teaching events’ (Medley & Mitzel, 1963:254). These authors further distinguish three types of reliability: ‘coefficient of observer agreement’, calculated when different observers observe at the same time, ‘reliability coefficient’, calculated when different observers observe at different times, and ‘stability coefficient’, calculated when the same observer observes at different times. Observer agreement in the first two types is the extent to which two or more observers independently code the same evidence consistently, otherwise known as ‘inter-observer agreement’. In the last type, it is the extent to which a single coder consistently codes the same evidence on two or more occasions, otherwise known as ‘intra-observer agreement’. For the purposes of the research presented in this book, both agreement types were considered and tested prior to effective data collection.

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Testing for observer agreement This required the training of another observer on the use of T.F.B.O.S. To this end, a training programme was drawn up and implemented during a week-long period. Ahead of the training exercise, the co-observer (an experienced research student I contracted at the Faculty of Education of the University of Buea) studied both the operational definitions (Appendix 1) and rules for coding variables and categories of the observation system (Table 3.2) so as to get acquainted with them. Following Croll’s (1986) advice, we agreed on how teachers’ feedback utterances in class should be coded and went on to examine several specific examples of these drawn from our past experience in secondary schools in Cameroon. This enabled greater understanding by the co-observer of issues related to the observation system and how it works. Training to use the observation record consisted of three successive coding exercises or trial sessions when the co-observer and I had to independently apply the learnt rules, first, to an audio-taped lesson, then, to two video-taped lessons, and finally, to a transcript of another audio-taped lesson, all of secondary classroom teaching in the UK and Cameroon. Between each trial session, we compared our coding and where disagreements were noticed due to misunderstanding or misinterpretation of operational definitions of categories and coding rules, these were resolved through consensus. Resolving disagreements helped to build confidence and eliminate uncertainty prior to the next trial session, and especially before moving on to the piloting phase of the study when we now practised our coding during two lessons (English and Geography) in the real-life situation of classrooms. Estimates of inter-observer agreement were based on coding done during these two lessons. Though the co-observer had consented to accompany me to lessons during fieldwork so that observer agreement to be reported would be based on results of post-observation checks, he later opted to pull out of the study (having been taken ill) just a few days before the beginning of effective data collection. Not having enough time to train another observer, I decided to report estimates of agreement based on the two lessons coded as part of piloting activity, fully aware that this constitutes a weakness in the data collection process.

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Table 3.2 Rules for coding variables and categories using T.F.B.O.S. The following guidelines apply when using T. F. B. O. S.: 1. The presence of a live observer is needed. 2. If possible a previously trained co-observer should be part of the observation for later inter-observer reliability check. 3. The observer sits at the rear of the class where teachers and pupils can be observed unobtrusively. 4. S/he requires a pencil and/or pen and a time-keeping device for recordings. 5. S/he needs a mechanical aid, preferably a tape recorder for playback purposes-to help reconstruct what happened for later recoding. 6. The live and sound recordings are done simultaneously. 7. In addition to the observation sheet, the observer has an extra sheet bearing synoptic descriptions of variables and categories for quick reference if necessary. 8. The observer should be capable of observing and coding simultaneously. 9. S/he ensures that the process of coding does not interfere with that of observing. 10. S/he ensures accuracy in classroom recording for later data processing. 11. The observer focuses on teacher verbal utterances, the teacher being the primary focus of observation, then on the verbal utterances of selected pupils. 12. The observer does ‘event coding’, recording feedback events at particular time intervals of their occurrence. 13. Time units as well as category change are coded.

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14. The observer is concerned with the frequency, and not with the duration, sequence or location (start, middle, end of lesson) of feedback events. 15. Events or utterances are recorded simultaneously as they occur with no reliance on memory to write a description following a period of observation. 16. Each feedback event is described/coded by a single tick (—) in the appropriate box, followed by the letters I (if the feedback is directed to an individual, G (if it is directed to a group of persons) and C (if it is directed to the whole class). 17. The record of an observation session will therefore consist of a series of such ticks and letters (—I, —G, —C). 18. Utterances that fit into more than one category (if any) are coded as such. 19. Two or more successive statements following pupil performance or behaviour and referring to one category are coded as only one instance of that category e.g. ‘Correct’, ‘Right’, following a student’s response represent one tick of the category ‘Flat acceptance’. 20. The expressions ‘Okay’, ‘Right’, ‘Good’, ‘All right’, can be used as discourse markers to negotiate a change in classroom activity and in such situations, should not be coded as feedback categories. 21. The observer determines whether teacher feedback is in reaction to pupils’ academic performance or social behaviour.

To determine coder agreement two questions were asked: 1) When a codable event occurred, did both coders code it? 2) If both of them did, did their coding agree? We calculated the reliability coefficient for each variable and category coded using a simple formula proposed by Wheldall and Merrett (1984a):

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P= Na u 100 Na + Nd Where P= % of agreement between observers, Na = number of agreements and Nd = number of disagreements. Thus, the reliability coefficient for category 1, ‘Flat Acceptance’ (see Table 3.3) would be 93.3 % obtained as follows: 36 u 100 36 + 3

=

3600 39

=

93. 3 %

Table 3.3 shows that the two coders were in agreement most of the time. Wheldall & Merrett (1984a), Boehm & Weinberg (1977), Wragg (1999) all agree that a minimum acceptable level of inter-coder reliability is normally at least 80 %. Given this overall high reliability, I was more confident of my ability to code systematically and with consistency on subsequent occasions, in the absence of the co-observer. Wragg (1999:55) confirms that ‘the internal consistency or reliability of one observer-the degree to which an observer encodes a behaviour in the same fashion over a recording period - is possible when behaviours observed are unambiguous, clearly defined, incorporated into a systematic observation system which has specific directions for use and with which the observer is familiar after repeated successful trials’.

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Category Observer A Flat Acceptance 39 Partial Acceptance 6 Probe 11 Clue 2 Encouragement 1 Categorical refusal 15 Retrial 0 Simple Praise 11 Extended Praise 0 Reward 0 Direct Correction 5 Indirect Correction 2 Advice 1 Criticism 0 Punishment 1 Warning/Threat 0 No Explicit Feedback 1 Unidentified 0 TOTAL 95 F. on academic work 92 F. on social behaviour 3

Observer B 36 9 10 1 1 13 1 8 0 0 4 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 87 84 3

Agreement 36 6 10 1 1 13 0 8 1 1 4 2 1 1 1 1 0 1 87 84 3

Table 3.3 Estimates of inter-coder reliability in two lessons

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Disagreement 3 3 1 1 0 2 1 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 8 8 0

Rate of Agreement (%) 92.3 66.7 90.9 50.0 100 86.7 00.0 72.7 100 100 80 100 100 100 100 100 00.0 100 91.6 91.3 100

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Observation, as we have seen, is an essential tool of classroom research, but if feedback provision is about the exchange of ideas and meanings then we can discover only some of these by observing. To maximise our prospects of gaining access to these ideas and meanings we must listen as well as look and we must talk with those whom we watch. Thus, having decided to observe teachers and students, I gave them time through interviews to shed more light on observed phenomena.

3.4.2 The interviews with teachers and students The need for interviewing Interviewing was a keystone to this research. The interview can be used as a supplemental research method e.g. to provide information not accessible through other methods about reasons for observed behaviours or to check the accuracy of information obtained previously. Hook (1990) stresses the importance of the interview as a useful research tool: ‘The value of the interview lies in its ability to gather information about peoples’ knowledge, about feelings and attitudes, about beliefs and expectations, about intentions and actions, and about reasons and explanations. Much of the information obtained through interviews is not readily available nor does it occur frequently enough to merit investigation by other means. The interview is the most direct way of finding out why a person does something or what his beliefs or opinions are’. According to Bell (1999:135), a good way of getting ‘rich understanding’ of issues in a case study is by collecting qualitative data, for instance via interviewing. This is because the interview is adaptable and enables a skilful interviewer to follow up ideas, probe responses and investigate motives and feelings behind interviewees’ statements. In keeping with socio-cultural tradition to recognise research subjects’ accounts in the representation of phenomena studied, I considered it appropriate to portray issues I investigated through the eyes of teachers and students in PCAS, JBSS and GHS. I designed two semi-structured interview guides to give them the opportunity to express personal views about feedback and learning. Both interview guides contain sets of questions that were taken into the research setting. They were not meant to be exhaustive as further questions were expected to emerge out of observation of lessons and initial analyses of documents. Not all the questions in the ‘guides’ were exploited during each interview session. Choice of questions to be asked during each discussion depended on the circumstances of interviewees and the particular stage at which the interview occurred during the entire research period. Details of the

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interview guides will be discussed separately, beginning with that which was designed for teachers. Interviews with teachers The purpose of these interviews was to obtain self-reports of teachers’ feedback practice and to probe their conceptualisation and understanding of feedback and its role in students’ learning. I had firm ideas about the nature of questions to be asked in the interviews, so established a schedule of questions beforehand and did not consult potential interviewees before negotiating the agenda. It was considered more suitable to have such an instrument to direct and focus discussions as far as possible around issues of interest, at the same time allowing informants to articulate on issues as deeply as they pleased. Newson & Newson agree that the schedule is necessary ‘because of the number and complexity of questions asked and because of the importance of wording and order. It is used as a core to the interview and provides a basic structure on which the skilled interviewer can build a relatively free conversation…The order of questions is worked out precisely, so that the conversation will have both flow and a variety of pace’ (1976:34). The interview guide for teachers comprised eight sections arranged thematically. x ‘Teachers’ understanding of feedback’ required them to say what they think classroom feedback is all about, what they do in terms of providing feedback to students, and what their purposes and intentions are in doing so. x ‘Forms of oral feedback teachers provide and their role in learning’, explored different feedback categories deployed during lessons and their perceived contribution or lack of it to students’ learning. x ‘Types of written feedback teachers provide and their role in learning’ dealt with feedback forms teachers make use of when reporting students’ performances on written tasks, and which of these they consider to be useful for learning and why. x ‘Students’ understanding of feedback’ required teachers to say whether or not they think some pupils have difficulty in understanding what is said in class or written in their books, and if so, why. Also, whether or not they think pupils understand what they are asked to do about feedback forms like comments, marks, etc on work that has been assessed.

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x ‘Teachers’ views about learning’ explored what they think about learning: what it means to them, how and why students learn, what they do to support students’ learning through feedback, whether or not students are allowed to engage in collaborative learning and to practise self and peer correction. x In section 6, ‘Effects of teacher feedback on student learning’, I elicited from teachers information regarding what concrete actions they thought students take on feedback they receive, and whether teachers find out how students use feedback they provide, types of written feedback provided on students’ work and whether they make use of this to make their work better. x ‘Contextual features affecting feedback provision and uptake’ addressed the question of linguistic and socio-cultural aspects of the learning context and possible influences on the feedback for learning relationship. x The last section, ‘Miscellaneous’ focused, first, on the audience of feedback, and next, on any other issues that emerged from observations, student interviews and documents collected from students and the school administration e.g. scores students obtained in English, Geography and Chemistry on different occasions and what accounts for differences (if any) between them, teaching techniques (monologic, dialogic conversation) adopted in class to make students act on feedback information they are provided and rationales for techniques employed. Let us now take a look at the content of the interview guide designed for students. Interviews with students Student interviews were intent on obtaining their perception, interpretation and understanding of teachers’ feedback and its role in their attainment and learning in school. As with teacher interviews, the interview guide for students dealt with exactly the same themes exploited in the teachers’ schedule. However, the form student interview items took was different, firstly, to avoid use of the term ‘feedback’ that might otherwise have ‘put words into pupils’ mouths’; secondly, to use language that they understand. Consequently, to find out whether or not students are aware of what obtains in their classes in terms of feedback, they were asked what teachers do to let them know the quality of their work or responses to questions in class; what teachers do when they perform well or poorly in work or behaviour; how teachers react when they express difficulty doing exercises during lessons and when their responses to questions in class do

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not seem to be clear or complete enough; how teachers report their performance in written tasks. To determine their understanding of feedback, students were asked to say whether they recognise teachers’ feedback and its intentions when they receive work that has been marked; whether they understand what they are asked to do about correcting their work, the basis on which they are asked to correct their work and what they actually do about that; also, whether or not they have any difficulty understanding what their teachers say and write and if so, why, what sort of difficulty, what they do in such situations. To determine the contributions of feedback to learning, students were expected to say what they think about various forms of feedback like praise, punishment, clues, probes, grades, marks, comments and which of these they think help them make their work better and in what ways. Regarding contextual issues, students were asked what language (s) they speak at home and in school; how they feel about using Standard English and French in class, at home, in school; whether or not they think speaking Pidgin or their dialect impedes on their ability to use English or French effectively in school; their attitude towards their schools’ languages of instruction and implications (if any); the socio-economic status of their parents, what extra help parents give them at home that facilitates correction of work; which tribes they belong to and whether they think any of the above affects their learning in any way. Once again, the section ‘Miscellaneous’ addressed issues pertaining to the audience of feedback as well as other feedback-related matters documented during observations and those emerging from teacher interviews and initial analysis of documents. It would be useful at this point to explain what type of documents were collected and why documentary research was important in the first place.

3.4.3 Documentary research Rationale for the collection of documents The place of documents in social research has been recognised by many. Hammersley and Atkinson (1983:158) contend that generally, documents provide information on places, persons and events that cannot be acquired first hand; they also enable a researcher to gather information that complements other data sources. To Woods (1986:90), useful support to observations and interviews is given through the judicious use of written

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or printed materials. These stand in for researchers in places and at times when they find it difficult or impossible to be present personally, and might be employed as a follow-up or a precursor to methods like observations and interviews. I draw on these researchers to make the case for documents as source of evidence for this study. Studying multiple dimensions of the concept of school feedback demands the collection of rich and diversified data, some of which could not be collected via other instruments adopted for use in this study. It was not possible, for instance, to get much evidence on written feedback from classroom observations where orally negotiated feedback reporting dominates, or from interviews where informants could only talk about written feedback without demonstrating it visually. To obtain evidence of written feedback for analysis and for further discussion with students and teachers, it was absolutely necessary to collect samples of assessed written work e.g. past copies of examination and test scripts, copies of exercises and homework teachers have assessed, etc. It was hoped that these materials would be obtained from sampled students under study during or after observation of lessons to enable comparisons to be made across teachers and schools regarding written feedback practice. I also intended to collect any extra documents that could throw light on the way assessment is carried out in secondary schools in Cameroon, how teachers use resulting feedback and with what intentions and purposes, and what problems they are facing in the task of providing students with information relating to the quality of their work and conduct in school. For example, the Cameroon Government, like the British Government through the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), officially legislates on schools’ assessment practice and prescribes how and how often the reporting of students’ assessment outcomes should be done (National Curriculum Council, 1996). It was therefore essential to collect statutory material on this to enable judgements to be made of how far schools follow instructions handed down to them by hierarchy. Official documents, as Scott (1990) rightly contends, ‘are shaped by the structure and activities of the state both directly and indirectly and reflects the organisation and interest of state agencies’.

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3.4.4. Collecting supplementary/complementary information: the standardized test Rationale for the test It was mentioned in Chapter 1 that students’ proficiency levels in their school’s language(s) of instruction can influence their comprehension of teachers’ feedback discourse. Hence, I obtained their first term results in English to get a measure of their ability levels in this language prior to data collection. However, not being confident of the reliability and validity of teacher-made tests in Cameroon secondary schools (See section 3.5.6 below for an explanation of this), I preferred to administer a standardized alternative and obtained one from the local Provincial Delegation of National Education.1 Students’ performances in this test, especially in listening and written comprehension, were expected to complement interview-generated data on their understanding of oral and written feedback. The standardized test, the English Language Common Promotion Examination (CPE) for Form 3 students passing on to Form 4, covered all areas of the English language programme for Form 4 in secondary schools in Cameroon: Grammar, Vocabulary, Reading and Listening Comprehension and Composition Writing. The next section looks at how access was gained into host institutions where data collection took place.

3.5 Data gathering procedures 3.5.1 Access into inquiry settings ‘Gaining access is an important first step in planning any educational research. Negotiating is normally underpinned by…negotiation of ground rules for access to and the use of data’ (Foskett, 2000:134). I began negotiating entry into the research setting three weeks before the effective start of fieldwork by approaching three secondary schools that met the sampling criteria discussed in section 3.3. I personally approached the school heads, some of whom were accessible on the first visit, others only after repeated visits, but most of whom referred me to their deputies to seek permission to conduct the study within their premises. I contacted a fourth school to pilot data collection instruments.

1 Commonly known by its French acronym, DELEDUC which stands for ‘Délégation de l’Education Nationale.

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In all schools, I presented a ‘cover story’ (McNeil, 1985) that clarified some aspects of my research stance and consisted of who I am, what the study is about, its purposes, how data was to be collected, the timetable for collection, the number and type of participants required and criteria for selection, what I will do with the results of the study, benefits the research will bring to me and to the schools to be studied. This in many ways impressed the ‘gate-keepers’ who thought the research would satisfy the needs of the schools and the wider Cameroonian educational community. In fact, Denscombe (1998:5) suggests that before carrying out research, every social researcher must satisfy him/herself amongst other things, of the significance of the research carried out in relation to current issues in the society. When negotiating access, I also discussed issues of confidentiality and anonymity, the general research protocol, ethical guidelines to be respected prior to, during and after fieldwork and I made available copies of this protocol to all school heads and their deputies. In JBSS, the Deputy Principal explained his school’s internal codes of research practice including terms, conditions and restrictions that I happily agreed to respect e.g. No document collected from the school was to be taken off campus; all were to be consulted or photocopied and returned on the same day. After having consented to my request and helped in the selection of teachers, the ‘gate-keepers’ systematically arranged a meeting with sampled teachers that provided the opportunity for introductions to be made. I then explained my visit and requested their approval to participate in much the same way as I did to their superiors. They were given copies of the research protocol as well, and finally, they demonstrated consent by giving individual timetables so I could match planned activities e.g. piloting of instruments, to a schedule.

3.5.2 Piloting the instruments Given that the observation record had been developed for a pilot study in England and was now going to be used in a different educational and cultural environment, and given the need to adapt data-gathering instruments to the new setting to reflect the socio-cultural stance of this study, it was necessary to test their usability in Cameroon. So, ahead of the effective start of fieldwork, the reliability and validity of the observational categories and interview items were tested on a selected number of students and teachers from one secondary school other than the ones I eventually studied. The observation schedule was tested during two 30

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minutes-long Geography and English language lessons in a Form 4 class. Rules for coding variables and categories were strictly observed and the coding process went well with no anomaly noticed. This was evidence that the observational categories had been defined with conceptual clarity and that previous experience with using the instrument facilitated re-use on each new occasion. Use of the tape-recorder and the mini-microphone was jointly tested for the first time. Piloting, then, enabled me to test the workability of these instruments, students’ reaction to their obtrusive presence, the extent to which their actions could have been influenced by the presence of the ‘outsider’, and the most suitable position to be occupied by both the researcher and instruments to guarantee maximum efficiency in mechanical and manual recording of classroom events. For instance, I realised the importance of placing the tape-recorder within eyesight, with the front facing me no matter where my position in the class was, so I could tell when recording stopped for whatever reason. To ascertain the clarity of the questions prior to effective use, the interview schedules were piloted through three ‘mock’ interviews, two of which were conducted with two Form 4 students drawn randomly from the class observed earlier, the third conducted with their teacher. The opportunity enabled me to get familiar with the questions and with the tape-recorder that was later used. Further to these trials, I modified interview items that seemed to be unclear and strategies that seemed to be inappropriate. Before the start of data collection and following the agreement of the schools and teachers observed, a familiarisation week was arranged when I accompanied the six teachers in all three schools to their respective classes and observed their lessons, each twice. These lessons were not recorded, either manually or via the tape-recorder in spite of its conspicuous presence in the classrooms. Later on, I held informal one-to-one discussions, first, with sampled teachers, next, with sampled students on diverse topics: politics, sports, the weather, the economy, schooling and teaching in Cameroon and the UK with a view to getting better acquainted with them. By and large, preliminary observations and interviews did enable me to get acquainted and build rapport with research subjects. It has to be recognised, as Walker & Adelman had, that ‘…however well teachers and students know you, and however careful you are, your presence in the classroom will have an effect on what happens and on how people act. Their action will of necessity be affected by their perception of your social status and identity’ (1987:9). Rapport, confidence and trust are

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therefore important to minimise the outsider’s influential effects and to ensure that research participants exhibit ‘real’, and not ‘make-believe’ behaviours in lessons. With rapport built, I began effective data collection by observing classrooms.

3.5.3 Conducting classroom observations Features of the data Each of the six teachers under study was observed five times throughout the research period, making a total of 30 observations, 10 carried out in each school. Additional observations were to be arranged only if the need arose. It is insufficient to build up reliable and credible descriptions of teachers’ feedback practice from single one-off observations of each teacher. It is only when they are observed several times that it becomes possible to give a systematic description of their behaviour because teaching styles or patterns may not fully emerge during any one lesson. More so, I recognised the need to study a series of lessons rather than a single one, to neutralise the likely consequence of the possibility that ‘teachers may modify their action especially during the first lesson to suit what they think the researcher expects’ (Wragg, 1999:15). Apart from recording as much classroom verbal behaviour of interest as possible during observations, the particular focus was on the main units of analysis, namely, teachers’ feedback utterances and actions addressing the whole class, individuals and groups of students. For example, if two or more students behaved in a way that contravened social conventions binding conduct in classrooms and were consequently asked by their teacher to kneel down for a determined period of time, I coded the teacher’s action as an instance of ‘Punishment’. If another teacher told a student his or her solution to a problem was inaccurate and then carried on with his lessons, the teacher’s utterance would be coded as an incidence of ‘Categorical refusal’. Recordings were also made of selected students discussing their work in pairs or groups after their books had been marked and returned to them. For this reason, there were occasions when I had to shift positions slightly and move the tape-recorder so as to pick up teacherstudent and student-student dialogues simultaneously, but without creating disturbance. Use of a video camera to record classroom events would have been less intrusive and could have reduced the possible effects my movements had on what teachers and students were doing. Generally, attention was paid during observations to the following issues:

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x Feedback categories made use of on and off the observation schedule; x Incidence and relative frequency of each feedback form, compared to others; x Students’ action on feedback during cooperative problem-solving activities; x Contextual issues of each classroom activity bearing on feedback for learning. Teachers’ feedback reactions were contingent on student on and off-task behaviours being observed and on behaviours that had taken place at dates previous to observations. Observation and coding procedures The essential in observational systems is that they involve the presence of an observer in the classroom, the recording of events as they occur and the coding of activities in such a way as to make possible a subsequent analysis of teacher and student behaviours. Before beginning observations, teachers were reassured my task was neither judgemental nor evaluative so that both teachers and students did not feel threatened by my presence. It was useful to ascertain that observations were made of situations similar to those which normally occur in the absence of a visitor. In all schools the teachers studied seemed to follow the same introductory procedure: prior to the very first observations, they explained my visit and called on students to cooperate, tolerate and ignore my presence and to go about their learning as usual. In all classrooms recordings were done with teachers wearing a mini-microphone. The tape-recorder was placed on the desks of selected students under study to record their conversations, even though this was likely to influence what they said (Croll, 1986). My very presence in classrooms as observer (though I did not intend to participate in activities) would necessarily have impacted on data to be collected from teachers and students. That is why I put in effort as much as possible in advance of actual data collection to minimise the likelihood of the ‘Hawthorne effect’ and data contamination e.g. by getting sampled students and teachers familiar with the recording instruments and with my presence in their midst. During each observation, pre-set coding rules were respected and I endeavoured to use the schedule as correctly as was intended. The observations and recordings were started at the beginning of lessons when most of the students were in class and the teachers began daily attendance

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roll call. In all cases, I sat at the back of the class in accordance with Walker & Adelman’s (1987:10) prescription: ‘Place yourself in a position where you can observe most but intrude least in the activities of the class. In a traditional classroom where all desks face the front, the usual place to put the observer is somewhere at the back. This means you can watch the teacher from afar without distracting the students too much’, though it also means ‘you cannot see their faces’.

To reduce possible bias stemming from my presence, I avoided eye contact with both teachers and students and tried not to interrupt their activities in any way, following McIntyre’s 1980 reasoning: ‘… if the observer avoids any kind of overt interaction, verbal or non-verbal with others present in the classroom… he will eventually be taken for granted as someone whose activities do not impinge on the teacher’s or pupils’ concern’ (p. 23). Even so, my ‘staying aloof’, not ‘going native’ was threatened in one Geography lesson- the class teacher asked my opinion on the topic at hand and I had no option but to comply. Overall, observations were successfully carried out though I faced several problems, some of which are outlined below. 1) I was unable, at times, to report to schools due to ill health. 2) On few occasions, a female teacher could not attach the minimicrophone to her dress that was not suitably equipped with a pocket and a collar to carry the device. 3) At times, I could not observe lessons due to the unexplained absence of teachers, or to teacher’s absence following bereavement, ill health, assignment to other duties by school heads, and to two teachers’ preoccupation with undergraduate studies at university. When data collection (including observation of lessons) was hitch-free, the overall procedure was spiral: I repeatedly observed classrooms, collected documents from teachers and students, interviewed them, making sure each step of the data-collection process was informed by evidence gathered from the preceding step(s). The qualitative stance of the study required that teacher and student discourse also serve as a medium through which I could get access to realities in schools. The next section examines how interviews were conducted.

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3.5.4 Conducting the interviews A total of 60 one-to-one interviews were conducted in all three schools: 5 per teacher and 5 per student. The themes of each interview guide were simply divided and treated in the different interviews that were of unequal length and duration. It was essential to interview more than one teacher and student per school because each person has his or her own experiences and is expected to talk differently of the same issue. It was crucial to get multiple teacher and student opinions on the subjects discussed to enable a comparison to be made thereof. Interviews were conducted during or after school hours and at weekends, depending on the availability of interviewees and of an appropriate venue for discussion. Several venues, then, were used: school staff rooms and school libraries, Students’ Affairs Office, Discipline Master’s Office, empty classrooms, researcher’s home, interviewees’ homes, when they were judged to be most convenient, meeting Hook’s criteria: ‘Positions within the interview situation need to be considered. The less formal, the more relaxed, the less confrontational, the more promoting a sense of togetherness, the better’ (1990:70). Prior to the very first series of interviews, the purpose and objectives of the research had to be re-explained and the respect for confidentiality in the interviews stressed. This proved to be useful in creating an atmosphere conveying trust and confidence required for interviewees to freely express their minds without fear. I also made sure informants were aware discussions were to be tape-recorded. That they felt relaxed to speak frankly due to guarantees of anonymity and to friendliness created beforehand was exemplified by the use of Pidgin English in all interviews by one student who found it more comfortable to express herself in that language, despite all other interviewees preferring to use Standard English. My decision to use interviewees’ choice of language was in respect of arguments in socio-cultural theory in favour of the valorisation in research, of the opinions of subjects studied. The interviews progressed in a semi-structured fashion. Interviewees were exposed to the same range of pre-established questions on the schedules, despite differences in the nature of additional questions that emerged from observations and documents in their separate institutions. Teachers and students were encouraged to articulate their responses as deeply and as freely as possible, while I was trying to respect the pre-set content of the interview guides. Even though the wording and ordering of questions on the schedules were not strictly respected, I gave direction to the interview so that the content focused on the crucial issues of the study. Interviewees

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enjoyed relative flexibility in talking about issues raised and digressions were tolerated. This had several advantages also mentioned by Cohen et al (2000:172): it generated detailed and more valid responses from respondents’ perceptions of reality; it also made data collection systematic for each respondent and interviews remained fairly conversational. Despite the foregoing, I was confronted with a good number of challenges when planning and conducting interviews: 1) The student interviewee who chose to speak in Pidgin English abandoned her school unexpectedly just before the end of the academic year, so was unavailable for the last series of discussions. 2) The tape-recorder repeatedly got stuck during two interviews, resulting in occasional disruption to the smooth flow of conversations. 3) The quality of recordings I made of a few interviews was affected by background noise caused by children wailing, playing or singing, cocks crowing, doors slamming, bell ringing, neighbours talking not too far away, people bumping unannounced into interview settings and only stopping short of interrupting the interview sessions upon realising what was going on2. To minimise the effects of constraining influences during interviews, tape-recording was paused in the event of anticipated disturbances, though the problems I faced meant extra time, energy, effort and costs in data collection. Collecting documents was also part of the data collection process.

3.5.5 Collecting documents Organising documentary research around the timetable of observations and interviews, I collected the materials on written feedback mentioned in section 3.4.3 above and made anonymized copies of them. Official documents were obtained from school heads or their deputies e.g. samples of progress report slips. Students under study were given letters requesting and, at times, reminding them to bring both marked and unchecked written work that were examined throughout the research period. It was hoped that 2

All of this reveals that the physical environment of the study was often characterised by situational constraints that were, for the most part, beyond the control of either the researcher or of those under study. Presumably, some of these constraints that affected the data collection process may, to a greater or lesser extent, have also affected teaching and learning activities in several ways, especially concerning the use students were making of teachers’ feedback. I will return to this issue in Chapter 6 when discussing the impact of contextual features on feedback for learning in Cameroon.

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the documents collected should meet Scott’s (1990:5) criteria for judging the quality of documents in social research: ‘authenticity’, ‘credibility’, ‘representativeness’ and ‘meaning’. For instance, samples of written work, newspaper reports on assessment and feedback-related issues, just like schools’ progress reports collected were typical of their kind, that is, were representative of the totality of relevant documents and thereby provided a strong basis for generalisation even though it is not the aim of this study. All documents are equally clearly written with comprehensible content. More so, they seem to be credible and accurate, though some samples of written work and written feedback on them seem to lack the much needed ‘freedom from error and distortion’. I am not certain about the authenticity of statutory policy documents given that what I obtained for analysis are photocopies of the original. The only major difficulty that I faced while collecting documents was when the Vice Principal of JBSS denied me access to students’ test and examination results. It happened that my presence in the school coincided with an unfortunate incident in a nearby school, where it was alleged three students had been momentarily struck dumb by a classmate of theirs who gave them sweets that her mother ‘had supernaturally bewitched’. The school manager was not certain, to use his own words, ‘whether such results were needed solely for the purpose of research or to endanger the lives of the students through witchcraft. It required the intervention of my Cameroon-based research supervisor to convince him of the credibility of my identity, honesty and seriousness of purpose Testing was used to collect complementary data even though the bulk of required data was collected through interviews, observations and documents.

3.5.6 Administering the test A sample of the CPE was administered at the beginning of fieldwork to all six students studied in their various institutions. As a reminder, I decided to administer an additional standardized English language proficiency test (the CPE) to the students studied though I had been given the scores they earned in teacher-made tests and examinations in English, for the following reasons: 1) An informal discussion with one of the Pedagogic Inspectors of English at DELEDUC revealed that Inspectors had noticed shortcomings in teacher-made tests, especially with regard to validity and reliability. They produced the CPE expecting it to

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serve as a model that schools and teachers could eventually copy. The importance of validity and reliability in tests has been advocated by many (e.g. Mehrens & Lehmann, 1975; Wragg, 1999), and need not be overemphasised. 2) The discussion also revealed that that not all state-owned schools in the region follow the content of prescribed syllabuses: some teach ahead of others and some end up not completing their work before the end of the academic year. The need for harmonised teaching and testing in English led to the development of the CPE that is administered annually to students of state schools only3. I conclude this chapter on methodology with a discussion of strategies adopted for data analysis, but the ethical issues raised by the research need to be addressed first.

3.6 Ethical issues in the study Ethical principles in research guide action in the field (Simons & Usher, 2000:39). An example is the principle of access. As a member of the community within which I conducted research, I could have access to information more easily than if I was a complete stranger in the setting and this helped tremendously in enabling me to respect the timetable of data collection activities. Teachers were also informed of their rights to participate or not to participate in the study. In fact, the notion of voluntary informed consent is at the heart of research ethics in the natural and social sciences. It states that the human subjects of research have the right to know the nature, purposes and implications of research and autonomously to choose whether to participate in it or not (McNamee & Bridges, 2002; Homan, 2002). In conformity with this principle, when one student expressed anxiety over her participation and requested that I visit her parents to obtain their approval, I did so. I also had the ethical obligation to seek pupils’ consent before interviewing them and collecting their personal materials. I made clear to the school heads that I would write and 3

During administration in GHS, it occurred to me that the two students in this school could have taken the same test while transiting from Form 3 to 4, raising questions about the validity of results to be obtained after the second administration. Later discussions with them, however, confirmed they sat for other subjects in the CPE ‘but did not have sufficient time in their class to sit for the English language paper’. In effect then, like students in JBSS and PCAS, these students were ignorant of the content of the test prior to my administering it.

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obtain their parents’ permission on their behalf, a proposal that was considered unnecessary in each of the schools contacted where the Principals, opting typically to act as guardian of all the children, verbally requested and obtained their cooperation in the study. The principle of the respect of terms of negotiations with the participants (Reynolds, 1982), notably conditions related to trust, anonymity and confidentiality is of paramount importance to this research. At each stage in data collection, research participants were assured data would be collected and reported in anonymized form. Finally, disengagement from research settings proved to be difficult especially from certain teachers and students due to my prolonged presence in their midst, the intimate friendship ties built from frequent visits to their homes and the fear that I would be leaving them never to return again. Literally, I was persuaded to keep contact with them, which I gladly consented to.

3.7 Data analysis Table 3.4 below summarises the nature and quantity of data that were collected for analysis and where they were taken from. Within and across all data sources, data were analysed in the light of research questions. Table 3.4: Recapitulative table of data collected and analysed Data Sources Classroom observations Teacher interviews Student interviews Students’ written work: test and exam scripts Students’ written work: homework, class exercises Documentation on assessment and feedback reporting

Nature of data Ticks, notes on observation record sheets. Audio-tape recordings Transcribed interviews in Atlas/ti software Transcribed interviews in Atlas/ti software Photocopies of assessed and unassessed written work Photocopies of assessed and unassessed written work Photocopies of the written document

Quantity of data 30 observation record sheets. 29 audio tapes 30 teacher interviews 30 student interviews 23 selected photocopies 7 selected photocopies 2 copies

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Documentation on offences and sanctions School progress report slips Newspaper cuttings on feedback-related issues Test and exam results in curriculum subjects studied/ Standardized CPE

Photocopies of the written document

2 copies

Photocopies of the report slips Photocopies of the written documents

4 copies

Written records of students’ marks in English, Geography and Chemistry

Fieldwork notebook

Handwritten notes in notebook

9 sets of test/exam results 1 photocopy of CPE and 1 set of CPE results 1 copy

5 copies

Generally, analysis was carried out at two levels: ‘individual-case’ analysis and ‘cross-case analysis’ (Stake, 1995). At the first level, I searched for patterns, consistencies and differences in what was observed, obtained from interview responses, documents collected and the test administered within each school. At level two, I conducted a comparative analysis of cases having regard for the following criteria: community type (urban/rural); school type or ownership (state/church/private); gender of participants (male/female); teaching experience (‘new comers’/‘old hands’); lesson type (English/Geography/Chemistry). According to Edwards and Talbot (1994:45), such an analysis ‘takes us beyond the notion of the case as illustrative’ and allows for ‘common themes and patterns to be elicited, hypotheses generated and theory generated’. This was the general framework for analysis even though data from specific information sources (i.e. observations, interviews, documents, etc) were analysed either quantitatively or qualitatively. As Miles & Huberman assert, quantitative and qualitative methods are ‘inextricably entertwined’ not only at the level of specific data sets, but also at the levels of study design and analysis’ (1994:14). Fig 3.3 exemplifies observational data as collected for analysis during lessons.

—I

—I

Simple Praise

—C

—C —C —I

—C

—C

10

20

30

40

—I

50

60

— —

Undetermined —

Feedback on pupil moral / social behaviour

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Feedback on pupil academic performance 10 20 30 40 50 60 —C —C —G —I —C —C

Refusal/Repeat

Cat. Refusal

Encouragement

Clue

Probe

Partial Accept.

Flat Accept.

Categories Time intervals

Fig 3.3 Sample data matrix

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Unidentified

No Exp. Feed.

Warning/Threat

Punishment

Criticism

Advice

Ind. Correction.

Direct Correct.

Reward

Extend. Praise

—C

—C

—G

—C

—C

—C

—C

—C

—C

—I

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—G

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3.7.1 Format of evidence for analysing observational data The codings done in classrooms of teachers’ utterances and actions (or feedback events) were used as the basis for processing data. Observational data were organised into data matrices showing instances of each feedback category teachers deployed during lessons, time intervals (every ten minutes) within which feedback events occurred, the type of student behaviour (academic performance or social conduct) on which the feedback was provided. Feedback events were entered into the observation record as ticks followed by symbolic letters indicating whether feedback was addressed to an individual (I), a group of individuals (G) or the entire class (C). It was then possible to make simple quantitative counts of such ticks to obtain the cumulative frequency of each feedback type compared to others. Thus, the record shows not only how often the feedback behaviour or activity observed occurred, but also the total number of feedback events recorded per category and to whom teacher talk was addressed. Contextrelated data on the observation record were analysed qualitatively and collated with quantitatively collected data for a better interpretation and understanding of the latter.

3.7.2 Framework for analysing interviews Interview recordings were treated qualitatively. All interviews were transcribed from audiotapes onto data display sheets. Mindful that the quality of transcriptions hinges on the validity of data analysed, care was taken during transcription to ensure that interviewees’ oral statements were faithfully represented in written form. For example, effort was made to maintain errors of language use in utterances transcribed without attempting to correct or alter them. When transcribing interviews conducted in Cameroon Pidgin English, I tried as much as possible to ensure that renditions in the target language (i.e. Standard English) carried the same messages as contained in the original (source) text. Transcription conventions are fully explained in Appendix 2. Transcribed interview data were later typed into the computer software, ATLAS/ti for analysis. Gay (1981:343) recommends the use of computers for data analysis by researchers handling large amounts of data that are both laborious and time-consuming to treat manually. The choice of ATLAS/ti was influenced by certain considerations. First of all, the software has special functions such as a) word processors for writing and editing transcribed interviews, b) word retrievers for locating words,

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phrases and combinations of these in one or several files, c) code-andretrieve functions for identifying analytical categories, dividing texts into segments or chunks, attaching codes to the chunks, finding and displaying all instances of coded chunks according to pre-established categories. Transcribed data fed into ATLAS/ti were condensed via ‘open coding’ that involves the discovery and naming of categories and subcategories (Strauss, 1987; Creswell, 1998). Both ‘in-vivo codes’ (actual words used by participants studied) and ‘constructed codes’ (drawn from common experience, technical literature, knowledge of the substantive fields of feedback and learning) were assigned to words, phrases, sentences and whole paragraphs after interview data were scrutinized word by word and line by line. Later on, special functions of the software were used to match direct quotations from respondents’ utterances with established interpretive codes such that emerging themes, concepts, ideas and main points raised could be identified. Then followed ‘pattern coding’ (Miles & Huberman, 1994:69), i.e. the search for patterns, recurrences, regularities, similarities, differences, contradictions, surprises, comparisons, contrasts, in informants’ accounts, and the noting of relationships between concepts raised in interviews.

3.7.3 Framework for analysing documents and test results Analysis of documentary evidence as well as test results obtained from the standardized and teacher-made tests was both qualitative and quantitative, depending on document type and content. In quantitative analysis, I considered the raw scores students obtained in class tests/examinations in English, Geography and Chemistry as well as in the CPE as an indication of their ability levels in these subjects at the point of testing. Qualitative analysis was conducted in three ways. Firstly, through ‘speculative analysis’ (Woods, 1986:120), that is, tentative reflections and judgements in the form of comments jotted in the fieldwork notebook, and likely to reveal interesting insights into the comprehension of documents. This was the strategy used particularly on newspaper reports. Secondly, through ‘qualitative content analysis’ of comments and annotations on samples of students’ annual progress reports and on written work, revealing traces of teachers’ written feedback. In this case, emphasis was on understanding the meaning and significance of document content at literal and connotative levels. Thirdly, through ‘situated interpretation of documents’ (Scott, 1990), in which case the social and political contexts in which the

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document was produced were taken into account when looking for meaning in them. The official policy documents as well as newspaper reports witnessed this type of analysis. Conscious that my identity, values and beliefs as a researcher could bias my interpretation (Denscombe, 1998:208) of all data collected, I ‘distanced myself’ from data by allowing the facts to speak for themselves; but I also acknowledged the extent to which my ‘making sense of lessons learned’ (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) was shaped by my experiences and background. In order words, even though interpretation of meaning was eventually personal (as is usually the case according to Riley, 1990: 69), I made as much objective interpretation as I possibly could, while allowing room for alternative interpretations. Finally, data have been reported by themes in tables, figures, graphs and verbatim quotes in the case of transcriptions from interviews and lessons observed1.

3.8 Conclusion This chapter treated methodological aspects of my study of Cameroonian teachers’ feedback practice, in which selected Form 4 teachers and their students were observed interacting in English, Geography and Chemistry lessons. During the study, samples of students’ written work were 1

Given the large number of interviews conducted and transcribed, it is unreasonable to attempt reporting every relevant quotation verbatim. For this reason, only quotes that most aptly illustrate a category, concept or finding in data analysis have been reported directly. In other cases, important quotes are either appended, tabulated or the main ideas they contain re-expressed e.g. in tables, but with care taken not to distort meanings contained in the original text. It should be taken that quotes not reported in any of the above ways are not likely to contribute to discussion and analysis any more meaningfully, and that nothing substantial is lost by excluding them. Unless otherwise stated, selected quotes or the main ideas they contain are, in all cases, meant to be typical and representative e.g. of the total number of quotes per analytical category and per interviewee. Quotes in Pidgin English are followed by a personal translation in Standard English. When reporting observational evidence I have made use, where appropriate, of selected dialogue extracts from lessons that were tape-recorded and transcribed. Once again, only examples that are very typical of the concepts they illustrate are reported. It should be understood again that exclusion of other dialogue extracts would affect neither the results reported nor their conclusions. In-depth analysis of only part of the data is certainly more profitable than superficial analysis of the whole and the gains in compactness and convenience of presentation more than make up for any caveats created by the exclusion of some data.

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collected for analysis of its feedback content. Post-observation interviews held with teachers and students provided the opportunity to probe their views on feedback practice as it relates to learning. I also collected schools’ official documentation on assessment and feedback practices, together with other relevant materials with potential to throw light on the research question investigated. Data collected from the above sources were treated qualitatively and quantitatively depending on the nature of the data, and use was made of computer-based software, Atlas/ti where manual treatment of data was considered unsuitable. Reporting and discussion of research findings will be the focus of the next three chapters. The first of these addresses the way teachers conceptualise feedback and the types of oral and written feedback they give students during lessons.

CHAPTER FOUR SECONDARY TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK CONCEPTUALISATIONS, PRACTICES AND INTENTIONS

4.0 Introduction This chapter is divided into two sections each with a specific focus: In the first, I look at different ways in which the Cameroonian teachers I studied understand and talk about the feedback concept as used in classrooms. Next, I describe and analyse different forms of feedback they deployed in classrooms and the intentions associated with their actions. Issues pertaining to learning are discussed briefly in this chapter and more elaborately in the next. To report findings, I draw alternately from observational, interview and documentary sources for purposes of triangulation. I resort to the use of pseudonyms for research participants and institutions for the sake of anonymity, according to Punch’s suggestion: ‘identities, locations of individuals and places are concealed in published results, data collected are held in anonymized form and are all kept securely confidential’ (1994:92). Hence, the private school is referred to as PCAS, the church school as JBSS, and the state school as GHS. Teachers will be referred to by their initials and students by pseudonyms (Table 4.1). Where appropriate, both will be mentioned in analysis together with the schools they represent and subjects they teach, thus RW:PCAS:Geo refers to Mr RW, Geography teacher of PCAS.

Mr JA ‘New comer’* English Untrained Mr RW ‘Old hand’** Geography Untrained Miss JN ‘New comer’ English Trained Mr DN ‘Old hand’ Geography Untrained

Private, Rural

Church, Semi-urban

PCAS

JBSS

Carl

Henry

Male

Vally

Doro

Female

Male

Male

Male High-achiever

Male Low-achiever

Male High-achiever

Female Low-achiever

School Characteristics Teacher Profile Student Profile ____________________________________________________________________________________________

Table 4.1: Institutions and participants: profiles and characteristics

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GHS

State, Urban

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Miss EM Female Laura New comer English Trained Mr WL Male Clare New comer Chemistry Untrained * Between 1 and 10 years teaching experience. ** Above 10 years teaching experience

104

Female High-achiever

Female Low-achiever

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105

Let us now begin by examining ways in which teachers understand and talk about feedback.

4.1 Teachers’ conceptualisation and understanding of feedback In the school context, the term ‘feedback’ can be interpreted to mean different things depending on what one considers to be its agent(s), audience (s) and what it reports. A study I conducted into ‘feedback mechanisms’ and the direction of feedback flow in a Cambridgeshirebased junior secondary school revealed that in the school environment, there are several ‘agents’ or providers of feedback and ‘audiences’, those to whom feedback is addressed. For example, teachers provide students, their parents, and the school administration with feedback; students give teachers, their parents and school management feedback; parents provide feedback to teachers and management which, in turn, also ‘feedsback’ to parents. ‘Feedback’ is therefore a multifaceted and multidirectional activity (Tangie, 2015). It may refer to information a student gives his teacher about how well he thinks teaching is being done in class, in which case what is at issue is the teacher’s performance. When what counts is students’ work and conduct, then feedback is given in the opposite direction, that is, by teachers to students, which is the focus of this book. But what does ‘feedback’ mean to the Cameroonian teachers I studied? To answer this question, I sought ways to stimulate them to articulate what they think it is all about and to give examples of what exactly they do to demonstrate it in classrooms. The opinions they gave were more or less stable (within the same interview and between interviews) during the course of the study. While some teachers maintained a unique view or series of opinions throughout, others changed their views later on in the study. I begin by discussing the first series of views before showing how these changed over time. All five views or opinions teachers expressed are summarised in Figure 4.1

4.1.1 First Characterisation of feedback View One: Answers given to questions The first view the majority of teachers expressed is that feedback comprises spoken and written responses teachers obtain from students after formal or informal questioning, that indicate how well concepts were

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taught in lessons, how well students assimilated the concepts taught and what gaps still exist in their learning. To illustrate this view that 5 of the 6 teachers expressed, I report one interview account from Mr DN:JBSS:Geo. DN: Errr my... feedback...I…I’m looking at (…) the questions that I ask because when I ask an equa…a question (…) I want to know errr something about their learning. KT: OK. DN: And when they give back their answers, errr those answers to me are the feedback I'm looking at errr because from there I'll then judge… make my judgements from the answers that they give. KT: Ok. And what kind of judgements do you make? DN: Errr I know errr whether the concepts have been clearly understood or errr they, they are just partly understood errr and in that case errr I would, errr in correcting their work, I point out those areas where they have errr shortcomings.

The first view of feedback focuses on bottom-top or student-teacher feedback. According to this model, it is the teacher who is expected to make use of feedback, but with the intention of facilitating students’ learning in some way. The answers students give to questions can provide information on how good their academic work is. Though such information at this level is still held by teachers and has not yet been returned to or shared with students (meaning they are not yet in a position to learn from it), it can enable teachers to know where students faced difficulty when responding to tasks. This knowledge can cause remedial action with a view to helping students understand better. View Two: Students’ assessment of teachers’ performance This view expressed by Mr RW:PCAS:Geo alone defines feedback as information students provide to teachers and, sometimes, to the school administration about how satisfactorily teachers perform their duties. KT: Now, do you think emmm, you as a teacher also provide feedback to students about their academic work and conduct? RW: (...) Yah, this is simply because (…) we are in a private institution; the students pay their money. If, for example, you do not perform up to task... look, they themselves (...) They react towards that and it, it, it is a system whereby if you still persist, you know, some of them they (…) do protest and even go up to the Management to even inform.

The first and second views are similar from the viewpoint of the direction of feedback flow, namely, from the student to the teacher. Like his

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counterpart in JBSS, Mr RW had earlier explained his understanding of feedback in this same interview, as answers students give to teachers’ questions. When I probed further to find out if he also provides students with feedback in his professional capacity as teacher, his response above shows he does not think of it in this way. He introduces another audience of feedback, school management, that is worthy of further comment. The fact that students in privately-run schools and colleges in Cameroon, including PCAS, pay tuition fees (most often several times higher than what students in mainstream state schools pay) is important. Students in PCAS have the right to complain to hierarchy when they are not getting good value for their money. This means teachers need to be accountable and therefore are constantly under pressure to perform well, be seen as working hard and achieving results. When students feedback on teachers’ performance to the administration, it is teachers’ interest rather than students’ that such feedback more directly serves. Even if the ultimate intention is to provoke administrative action of some sort that will lead to better teaching and, by extension, enhanced learning in the long term, this is a view of feedback that prioritises teachers’ professional success in the first instance. View Three: Formal and informal assessments Another view of feedback obtained only from Miss JN:JBSS:Eng associates it with assessment. To her, both terminologies, namely, assessment and feedback have the same referent though they are not interchangeable in language use. JN: (…) each lesson errr or after each week or every month or after every work you should be able to come out with what you mean by feedback. It, it, it still comes back to this thing of assessment in, in a way. It's just like Economists say 'shortage' and 'scarcity'. KT: That’s right. JN: It is…these words are not interchangeable.

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Fig. 4.1 Six Cameroon secondary teachers’ conceptualisation of feedback

Unlike the other teachers seen so far, Miss JN looks at feedback from a top-down or teacher-student perspective. Even so, her perception of it is limited to periodic assessments (formal and, probably, informal as well) given to students weekly, monthly or whenever some work has been completed. It is difficult to understand how ‘to assess’ can mean the same thing as ‘to provide feedback’ as she insinuates. When teachers assess written work formally through tests, examinations, exercises, or through oral questions they ask in class daily, they usually aim at finding out how students can demonstrate the knowledge and skills they have learnt. When the information that assessment generates is made available to students for them to act on and, if possible, improve on their work, one can claim that the students have been given feedback on their performance. Assessment only generates feedback and cannot be considered as feedback itself.

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Moreover, that act of ‘feeding back’ suggests a follow-up action to one that occurred at an earlier point in time. For instance, telling a child to enhance his effort in Maths means, contextually, that judgements of some kind had previously been made concerning his current ability in the subject and it was found that there is need for him to work harder. When feedback is defined as ‘assessment’, it is difficult to tell if it is construed with student learning in mind because, as James (1998) argued, many assessment systems are not designed for learning. Some require students to simply recount verbatim what was taught in class without any attempt made to verify if they internalised the knowledge they gained. View Four: Teachers’ reporting on students’ performance The last view in this first series also alluded to student-teacher feedback. It however distinguishes itself from all other opinions seen so far by capturing two dimensions of feedback that identify both teachers and students as potential beneficiaries. Let us examine what Mr JA:PCAS:Eng said about what feedback means to him. JA: Well errr feedback in the classroom is looked at two levels, you know, getting from students is a feedback to the teacher and then from the teacher to the student, you understand me. KT: Ehemn JA: (...) when you look it in the, in the domain of errr teacher giving back feedback to students, ehmn, (…) when you assess a student, you assess students in class, say, you give them a test or sometime you even observe the...their attitude in class, you need to call student ...like errr such students who have very poor attitude in class, you call them, you advise them and you try to see if the...their attitude change.

Mr JA expands on the second dimension of feedback (from teachers to students) and highlights how, in his view, feedback is expected to function in classrooms – for social learning; information on students’ conduct is used to advise them to change their behaviour if found to be undesirable. Mr JA does not give a similar example to explain how he uses information generated by tests administered to help students, an indication that his view of learning here seems to be restricted. It is now appropriate to examine how teachers’ views on ‘feedback’ changed over time.

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4.1.2 Evolving characterisation of feedback View Five: Students’ (mis)understanding of lessons Evolving views of feedback noticed in interviews were of two kinds: a) those that gave the impression teachers either consciously hold multiple opinions of the phenomenon or are not too certain which opinion to stand for; b) those that gave the impression they had consciously modified their opinions regarding what feedback means in the school context. Mr RW’s explanation of his understanding of feedback four months after his first account (reported in 4.1.1 above) seems to fall in the first category. RW: (…) I know that as a teacher, when I teach students I must get some response. I think that is what you mean by feedback. (…) most of the time I might not maybe interview or maybe ask them questions which will try to see how I evaluate myself, but errr from what they say. Some of them they even approach you and errr, you see, they give you some of the feedback. Either they tell you,’ ‘I was facing some difficulties in this particular area', errr some of them might even encourage you by saying that, 'Yes, the, the lesson was well understood, the advice was well taken’, and everything’.

In the first interview conducted in January, Mr RW highlighted the school administration as main addressee of the feedback students provide about their teachers’ performance. On this occasion (April), he sees ‘feedback’ as containing two pieces of information that students provide to teachers following teachers’ questions or that students can volunteer on their own account: information on how well they understood lessons and what difficulties (if any) they are facing when performing academic tasks. Another opinion of feedback Miss JN (JBSS) provided in a later interview in February suggests her thinking had changed progressively after the first interview of January reported in section 4.1.1 above. JN: (…) When we teach students we expect feedback from them and it is in the course of assessing them, whether you are doing something oral with them, an oral exercise with them, that’s, oral questioning or you have given them a written exercise, that is where you know the feedback you have gotten from the children. And when you correct the…their scripts they also expect feedback from you and that is something…the, the comments you put on their scripts.

In the earlier interview, she explained ‘feedback’ as assessments teachers give students periodically and, this time, as i) assessment-related information one gets from students after oral or written testing that

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indicates their level of understanding of lesson content, and as ii) written comments teachers put on students’ scripts after assessment. Despite that her second view seems to be restricted only to written feedback and written comments for that matter, it is similar to ‘View Four’ which considers students not only as ‘audience’ of feedback but as people who need it as much as teachers do. Further evidence of evolving conceptualisations of feedback could be found in the illustrations teachers gave of their classroom practice.

4.1.3 Demonstration of feedback practice in lessons To ascertain whether indeed teachers’ understanding of feedback is limited to the five options in Figure 4.1 above, I asked them to say what exactly they think they consciously do in terms of providing feedback to their students on academic performance and social behaviour. Responses offered provided further evidence of evolving conceptualisations and indicated that my intervention in the school setting via research activity helped in stimulating teachers’ minds towards greater reflection about their own feedback practice. The example Mr RW gave below of instances when he made judgements of students’ work and conduct and later made this information available to them suggests there was a shift in his thinking over time as the study progressed: he now talked about his personal experience of feedback as a top-down activity with students at the receiving end. Another illustration is the dialogue with Mr DN:JBSS:Geo reported in Appendix 3A at the end of this book. KT: OK, and then when the teacher has made errr this assessment of whether students have understood what has been taught, I think it is important too for the teacher to tell the students what he or she thinks about their performance. RW:[Reflects for a brief moment] Yes, yes. KT: So (…) would you be able to, to cite two or three instances of errr you actually providing feedback to students in class or out of class concerning their work or their behaviour? RW: Yah, for example, errr during the first term (…) in Form 4, we had a certain group of errr girls. You know, their class and their age group, they'll like to adventure a lot and give less time to their bookwork. So, we... in this our office, the Discipline Office, we took their names. We first of all suspended them for three days and we had to make sure that we actually closely monitored them, you see. Now, this was in the light of academics and also discipline, you see. (…) Most of the time it was not just a matter of maybe calling them and always punishing them, but you see, giving them the importance of maybe their studies.

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In the above dialogue, I began by drawing the teacher’s attention to the importance of pupil-directed feedback and this prompted him to reflect and to call to mind instances when he experienced it. The example he gave consists of punishing a group of students by first suspending them from school and, later, making them more aware of how important it is for them to study. The way Mr RW recounted this experience suggests that, unlike previously, he was now able to demonstrate deeper understanding of feedback with less uncertainty and greater confidence. We can see that, in effect, teachers’ conceptualisation of feedback is not limited to the five options they expressed and which are summarised in Fig. 4.1. It is possible that some of them had not used the word before, or had used it to mean different things that are unrelated to students’ work and conduct. They seem to have clear ideas about how to report students’ performance at school, without being aware such can be described as feedback practice. The next section that addresses the issue of feedback more profoundly will evaluate the validity of this claim.

4.2 Teachers’ feedback practice in secondary classrooms in Cameroon This section reports findings on ways in which the teachers I studied deploy assessment feedback. Three issues are discussed. x Firstly, the type, incidence and relative frequency of feedback forms provided orally during lessons. For ease of analysis oral feedback statements will be grouped together depending on whether they are ‘positive’, ‘negative’, or ‘neutral’. ‘Positive’ feedback will include complete or partial acceptance of ideas, simple or elaborate praise, reward and encouragement for work/effort; ‘negative’ feedback will comprise categorical rejection of ideas, criticism, warning/threat and punishment, while probes, clues, self, peer and teacher correction of ideas, advice on improvement of work will be taken as examples of ‘neutral’ feedback. x Secondly, how teachers react to written productions, given that a portrait of their feedback practice will be incomplete without an analysis of how they comment on students’ work in writing. x Finally, teachers’ communicative intentions when providing feedback and how students perceive these. If any evidence of disharmony can be found in teachers’ and students’ opinions of what teachers intend for students during feedback provision, then the concept of feedback intentions would have to be taken seriously. This is for several reasons:

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knowledge of intentions will determine for students how effective feedback uptake will be; also, when students understand feedback objectives it is easier for them to assist teachers meet these objectives. Conversely, when intentions are not interpreted as meant, student action that ensues is likely to be something dissimilar to that which was expected1. To discuss evidence of oral feedback practice, I resort to observational data, to teachers’ self accounts of their feedback practice and to students’ accounts of these. For evidence on written feedback, I rely alternately on samples of written work and on teacher and student interview statements related to this. On feedback intentions, I rely primarily, though not exclusively, on interview accounts. Breen et al (2001:498) remarked: ‘We cannot infer the intentions of teacher action or the reasons why teachers work in the ways they do in particular lessons with particular students only from observed practices’. An observer will have to seek other means of getting access into teachers’ feedback intentions and one way of doing this is by talking to teachers and students e.g. via post-observation interviews. Cohen & Cavalcanti (1990) for instance, examined teachers’ written comments to learners by eliciting from teachers what the comments were intended to mean, and from learners what they understood by them. Before looking at individual teachers’ feedback behaviours and at examples of 1

What will be of interest to analysis in this chapter are instances of disharmony in teacher and student perspectives noticed, notably, in the areas of rejection of responses, criticism, and probe. Interview data revealed that in all three schools studied, teachers and students interpreted teachers’ intentions with regard to other feedback forms like acceptance of responses, praise, punishment, etc in almost the same way though in different terms. For example, both were agreed that teachers accept students’ answers in order to let students know they are working hard in class, to encourage them to keep working hard, to tell students they are intelligent and knowledgeable in the concepts tested and to challenge others in class to copy their example; also, to tell students they have understood concepts taught and are moving in the right direction in their learning and to praise them. Both teachers and students agreed that praise is used to encourage students and to assure them that their reasoning is right and their understanding of lessons adequate, to inform them they are working hard and moving in the right direction and to encourage them to keep on working hard; also, to boost students’ morale and to let them know they have learnt something, to encourage them to participate in lessons even more and to volunteer answering questions whenever possible. According to teachers and students, praise is also meant to confirm that teachers are satisfied with the responses some students give and would like to encourage others to emulate their example. Verbatim accounts of feedback intentions can be found in Appendix 3C.

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each feedback form as it occurred during lessons, it will be useful to paint the general picture of events as found on the field e.g. by comparing the overall frequency of ‘positive’, ‘negative’ and ‘neutral’ feedback forms.

4.2.1 Patterns in group data 4.2.1.1 The frequency of ‘positive’, ‘negative’ and ‘neutral’ feedback in lessons Cumulative frequency counts of all teacher feedback utterances and actions recorded in PCAS, JBSS and GHS (Fig. 4.2) show that the teachers studied make use in their lessons and with variegated degrees of frequency, of almost all feedback types classified in the observation record (Chapter 3, section 3.4.1). Systematically, they were more ‘positive’ than ‘neutral’ or ‘negative’ in their feedback practice (Fig. 4.3). No instances of ‘Reward’ were recorded during observations. Two isolated instances of ‘Extended Praise’ occurred during Miss JN’s lessons (JBSS:Eng). For ease of analysis, they have been considered under the category ‘Praise’. The feedback categories not fully referenced in the diagrams include ‘Flat Acceptance’, ‘Partial Acceptance’, ‘Simple Praise’, ‘Categorical Refusal’, ‘Direct Correction’ and ‘Indirect Correction’. Positive feedback forms in combination counted for more than half the total number of feedback events recorded in each school, while ‘neutral’ and ‘negative’ forms taken together make up the remaining proportion. For example, of the 244 counts documented in JBSS, 161 of these (up to 66%) were positive and 21 (8.6%) were negative which means the teachers attach great value to rewarding students who answer questions correctly and/or behave in an appropriate manner. Fig. 4.2 portrays ‘neutral’ feedback as the second most preferred type for the teachers. The middle position it occupies gives the impression that when students’ responses or behaviours were considered unsatisfactory, all teachers observed were less likely to simply reject the validity of these responses or criticise, warn and punish students. To take the example JBSS, we notice that 25.4% of all feedback events teachers deployed comprised of clues, probes, opportunities for retrial and self-correction, whereas only 8.6% comprised of ‘negative’ feedback. This suggests that though teachers spent most of the time approving and praising students’ work and conduct (thus, on ‘self’oriented feedback, according to Hattie, 2001), they also had regard for ‘task-oriented’ feedback forms with potential to generate cognitive learning.

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Total of feedback events per category

Fig. 4.2 Cumulative totals of feedback events recorded by category in three schools

370

20

92

81

69

37 2

6

7

3

56

38 13

14

15

Nevertheless, the number of teachers opting for learning-oriented types is in the minority. We can tell from Fig. 4.3 that the most frequent ‘neutral’ feedback forms recorded in lessons were ‘Direct Correction’ (92 instances) and ‘Indirect Correction’ (56 instances) that far outnumber the others. In practical terms, this means that when students gave unacceptable answers to questions, their teachers more often tended to give them the expected answers themselves or asked other classmates to do so. Instances when they gave students opportunities to reflect over their responses and correct themselves were fewer, by comparison (13), and so were instances when they were probed in an open-ended fashion to explain their answers (37), or asked to co-construct feedback together with teachers (14). Therefore, students were being given few opportunities through feedback provision to get involved cognitively in the learning process. This issue is dealt with in greater detail in section 4.2.2 that addresses individual teachers’ profiles and feedback practices. How does the overall pattern in

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data look like as far as written feedback practice is concerned? It is to this issue that I now turn my attention.

Negative

PCAS

53.5

33.8

12.7

66

25.4

JBSS

8.6

Schools

54

32

GHS

14

Neutral

Positive

Fig. 4.3 Comparing overall frequency of feedback forms in lessons

Proportion of feedback forms (%)

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4.2.1.2 Summative and formative feedback: teachers’ preferences The written feedback practice of the teachers I studied also reflects a preference for ‘self-level’ feedback forms: analysis of written work revealed that when reporting performance in writing, most of them make use only of marks and, at times, brief comments like ‘Good’, ‘Very good’. In areas where students went wrong, only two teachers make use of detailed comments to indicate the nature of the difficulty students faced and what they could do to improve. Under similar circumstances, others chose to simply cross out incorrect answers, underline incorrect expressions, circle wrongly used/spelt words or put question marks on unclear statements. The use of such signs can be useful in indicating error zones in written work but cannot explain weaknesses in students’ preferred problem-solving strategies when they attempt tasks in class, which is much more helpful in the correction process. Sample of a student’s written work in English

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Fig. 4.4 Compparing teacherss' written feedbaack preferencess (%)

20

80

The high prreference for summative feeedback (80% % according to o Fig.4.4) suggests thaat most of thee teachers, at times, t did nott give studentts enough opportunitiees to learn froom errors theey made in w written tasks. The next section exam mines which of academicc performancce and sociall conduct counts moree for assessmeent and reportiing, accordingg to data. 4.2.1.3 Good work or goood conduct When providding feedbackk, the teachers I studied did not appear to attach as much value to proper condduct as they did to good quaality work (Fig g. 4.5). In each school they were more m inclined to react to ppupils’ approp priate and inappropriate academic coontributions th han they tookk note of acceeptable or unacceptablee conduct (alsso see Brophy y, 1981). For example, only y once in five lessons did Mr RW:P PCAS have an ny regard for cconduct; Miss JN:JBSS addressed alll 133-feedbacck statements during d 200 m minutes of teach hing time towards acaddemic perform mance only. This T means thaat while teach hers could recognise thaat students cam me to school in n the right uniiform for exam mple, very few of them m could receive feedback on the basis of this. It alsso means teachers gainn more time thhat they can make m use of in m more meaning gful ways. The less tim me spent on coonduct-related d issues, the m more time they y have to devote to teaaching and to on-task o activitties.

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Fig. 4.5 Comparing work & conduct as objects of feedback reporting

Total of feedback events in five lessons

335

239 206 W

7

5

PCAS

JBSS

C

16 GHS Schools

Again, amongst the fewer responses to social behaviour (28 in all), I noticed higher rates of negative feedback and so did Brophy (1981) and Galton et al (1980). More than half of conduct-based feedback events (20 instances) were contingent on inappropriate conduct that teachers were quick to criticise and for which students were often warned, threatened and even punished. So, while most of them recognised and praised good academic work they failed to do as much for appropriate conduct, which gives the impression that behaving in conformity with school regulations is the behavioural pattern expected from students that teachers need not over-emphasise. They do not waste time complimenting students for behaving in a way that is supposed to be conducive for their own learning. The next issue to be considered in the context of overall trends in data relates to the audience of teachers’ feedback.

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4.2.1.4 Individuals, groups and the class as audience of feedback Of the 808 instances of feedback events recorded in all lessons, the vast majority of these (606) were directed at the entire class, with 158 and 44 addressed respectively to individual students and groups of students (Fig. 4.6) Fig. 4.6 Comparing feedback practice by audience categories (%) 0 19.6

5.4 Indiv Group Class

75

These figures should however be treated with caution. Given the complexity of teacher-student interactions in classrooms, the feedback provision and uptake process is bound to be complex as well, making it difficult for an observer to determine at all times and with accuracy if a particular feedback event is directed to an individual, group or an the entire class. This problem is expected to be more acute in classes with large student numbers like the ones I visited in Cameroon where, in some cases, up to 80 students were present in a lesson. I noticed, for instance, that when a student who was part of a group or class provoked a feedback reaction, I could tell if in his response, the teacher focused his attention solely on this student and if he alone was in observable verbal interaction with the teacher at the time. What I could not always tell is whether this student was the sole recipient of the feedback message, and the difference

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between ‘audience’ (or addressee) and ‘recipient’ is important for feedback analysis insofar as the relationship between feedback and learning is concerned. In the context of whole-class teaching, teachers typically choose to address particular students in order to give feedback to them and to others. Let us take the example of end-of-year graduation ceremonies that most secondary schools in Cameroon organise annually for final year students and to which teachers, students and their parents are invited. An outstanding student is distinguished from the rest, made to look like a hero, invited to mount a platform, awarded prizes and certificates and is hailed by the entire assembly. Whether awards are given by subject teachers, the school head or designated members of the parent community as is usually the case in Cameroon, the objectives are usually the same. It is not to simply recognise merit and gratify the student; it is to present him as a model and to emphasise certain aspects of his character and academic work that the school wants other students to see and emulate. As a result, the reason why the student is being rewarded is usually announced to the assembly present simultaneously as the reward is being handed out. This means school authorities may address feedback to one student but intend another student (or the same addressee and another) to make use of it for the purpose of learning. The ‘audience’ and ‘recipient’ of feedback messages or other pieces of information both refer to one individual or a group of individuals in some cases and in other cases, to several persons. This is an issue of feedback practice that clearly requires further investigation. Having reported general trends in data, I now examine similarities and differences in individual teachers’ feedback practices.

4.2.2 Individual teachers’ feedback practices 4.2.2.1 Teachers’ profiles and the feedback continuum Figures 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9 show that but for a few exceptions, most of the feedback categories featured in each teacher’s lessons and that only in a few cases did certain individuals distinguish themselves from others in their feedback practice e.g. by providing the highest quantity of feedback events in one category or by being the only ones to have deployed a given type of feedback. We can tell for example that Mr JA:PCAS alone was found to be punishing students for unacceptable work and conduct; Mr RW of the same school was the only teacher who did not praise students on any

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occasion. Miss JN:JBSS alone provided ‘encouragement’ and commended students for working hard even though they failed to answer questions satisfactorily. Finally, Miss EM:GHS was the only teacher who, in five lessons, presented students with no opportunity to correct errors they made when she could have done so. She was also most prone to criticise students especially for improper conduct during lessons, while other teachers in similar situations reacted differently.

No. of feedback events after 5 lessons

Fig. 4.7 Feedback totals per category in PCAS

60

46

JA R W

19 13 13 8 1

3 4

4 1

3

6 2

11

8 22

4 3

43

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Fig. 4.8 Feedback totals per category in JBSS

No. of feedback events after 5 lessons

67

52

18 15

18 10 6

6 1

J N D N

2

9 5 5

2 2

4 4

1

77 3

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Fig. 4.9 Feedback totals per category in GHS

No. of feedback events after 5 lessons

82

63

E M

28 21 13 14 7 2

21 18

14 4

1 2

6

99 4

15 10

6

2 11

It is not very apparent why these teachers are unique in each of the aspects mentioned above. What seems to be clear is that on these particular occasions, each in his/her own way was uniquely engaged in feedback practices that are counterproductive to cognitive learning in ways that will be explained better when I discuss the incidence of individual feedback categories in lessons later on in this chapter. That almost all the preestablished feedback categories featured in lessons, on the whole, makes it possible to place the six teachers studied on a feedback continuum that summarises their feedback practices and highlights differences and similarities between them. Table 4.2 represents the continuum as I found it.

125

-------------------------------------------------

JN-----------------------

DN---------------

EM--------------

-------

---------

--------------

-------

--------------------

--------------------

--------------------------------------------------

--------------

-------------------------------------------------

WL---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------

RW------

-------

-------

JA-----------------

Positive feedback Negative feedback Neutral feedback ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Approval Praise Enc Reward Reject Criticise Warn Punish Probe Clue Retrial Correct Advise

Table 4.2 Positions teachers occupy along the feedback continuum

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How exactly did teachers compare in their oral and written feedback practices in PCAS, JBSS and GHS? The main points of convergence and divergence are summarized in Tables 4.3 and 4.4. Table 4.3 Similarities in teachers’ feedback practice x In all three schools teachers were mega-positive: each approved of students’ work and conduct verbally or in writing more than they deployed any other type of feedback. Precise examples of verbal feedback statements teachers made in class will be reported later in this chapter in section 4.2.3 x When students went wrong in their work, they all tended to reject the validity of their answers in a way that gave students neither opportunities to try other responses nor explanations as to why their answers had been rejected. x Characteristically, each of them provided students with fewer opportunities to assess and correct their work when they did not do well, preferring to correct students directly and through peer intervention. x None of the teachers were observed to reward students in class either by giving them bonus marks, tokens or other objects or by making promises of these. x All teachers, overall, provided more summative than formative feedback, with the former consisting mainly of marks and brief positive comments. x In all schools, teachers characteristically provided students with few opportunities to contribute in constructing feedback meaning that on the whole, the type of tasks that require teachers to work together with students were only rarely organised. x Instances when teachers failed to expressly give feedback verbally when it was necessary or required featured sparingly in each of the lessons. I found differences in teachers’ feedback practice relating to the types of schools they work in, the subjects they teach and whether they are male or female. They did not differ in terms of teaching experience.11 11

It is possible, without resorting to T-tests and Analysis of variance (ANOVA), to calculate differences between teachers so as to determine whether their individual profiles make it likely for some to deploy more amounts of feedback than others or feedback events of a particular kind. Results on statistical significance levels in

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Table 4.4 Differences in teachers’ feedback practice School type and feedback practice x Figures 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9 revealed that teachers from state and church schools (GHS & JBSS respectively) tended to be more mega-positive; they deployed eight times as many praise statements than their counterparts in the private school (PCAS), though is not very clear why this is so. x Criticising and warning is a less appealing feedback option in PCAS compared to JBSS and GHS, where teachers were found to make use of when students contravened rules of classroom conduct. Feedback and subject specialism x With the exception of the Chemistry teacher, language teachers, according to feedback totals in Figures 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9, tended to produce more feedback statements than others e.g. Mr JA:PCAS deployed up to 134 feedback events compared to only 86 for his colleague, Mr RW (Fig. 4.7). This could be for two main reasons: 1) Compared to Geography lessons in particular, language lessons were found to be much more characterised by teacher-pupil dialogic interactions that generated questions and answers and that enabled greater student participation in discussions. x Compared to teachers of English, teachers of Geography were never observed to co-construct feedback with their students, to attend to their problems on a personal level, or to organise learning activities that required them to individualise their feedback practice. x Complimenting students seems to be more popular amongst teachers of English who, in each school, systematically deployed more praise statements than teachers of Geography and Chemistry. x Teachers of English were also found to be more likely to provide detailed comments on written work than teachers of the other subjects who typically preferred brief remarks.

differences between teachers would be more meaningful in a study whose objective is to generalise its findings to the wider population of teachers from which the sample studied was chosen. More so, numerical values may not be a very strong indicator of differences in terms of teaching experience, subject specialism, and gender in this study because of the uneven representation of teachers in these profiles in the sample. For example, English language is represented by three teachers, whereas Geography and Chemistry are each represented by one.

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Gender and feedback practice x A gender-based difference exists in JBSS and GHS where both male and female teachers were observed, with female teachers appearing to be more positive in their feedback practice. For example, Miss JN:JBSS and Miss EM:GHS provided more praise statements than male teachers in their schools. This means that in both schools, the female teachers were also less likely to categorically reject students’ ideas than their male counterparts. From my experience of schooling in Cameroon, female teachers tend to avoid practices that can be damaging to students’ self-esteem. The last section of this chapter looks at the incidence of different feedback categories in lessons.

4.2.3 The incidence of feedback categories in lessons Observations, interviews and documents revealed that within and across schools, the teachers I studied react in different ways to the same type of student behaviour in class e.g. while a teacher may correct unacceptable work and conduct, another will react to the same situation by punishing students. I will discuss precise examples of oral and written feedback, ways in which they were deployed in lessons, the intentions with which teachers and students claimed they were deployed and the implications for learning. I begin with how teachers accepted/approved of student answers and conduct in class. 4.2.3.1 ‘Your answer is correct’ As the most frequent feedback form recorded in 23 of the 30 lessons observed, open acceptance of student ideas in class seems to occupy a special place in the hearts of teachers in PCAS, JBSS and GHS. Earlier studies into teachers’ feedback behaviour in classrooms also found that approving statements counted for the majority of feedback events deployed in lessons. In their respective studies into ‘natural rates of approval and disapproval’ in secondary classrooms in Hongkong, Australia and St. Helena, Winter (1990), Wheldall & Beaman (1994) and Charlton et al (1995) each concluded, similarly, that approval exceeded disapproval in classrooms they observed.

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Sample of a student’s written work in Geography

Both teachers and students said during interviews that teachers expressly accept appropriate answers students give to questions and this ties with what was observed. To emphasise the relevance he attaches to such a feedback practice, Mr DN:JBSS:Geo explained that ‘the first thing is... for me to acknowledge that the answer provided is correct’.12 In all three schools, teachers made use of the same words and expressions when accepting responses: ‘Agreed’, ‘Correct’, ‘Yes’, ‘Right’, ‘Yah’, ‘That’s right’, ‘OK’, ‘That’s correct’. In other cases, they repeated acceptable answers verbally. On written work, they used ticks to express approval as seen in the sample of written work above. Dialogue extract 4.1 was taken from an English language lesson in PCAS and illustrates how, typically, a teacher accepted students’ answers. This lesson, conducted by Mr JA, treated ‘Dangling modifiers’ and students were required to re-arrange sentences, putting noun modifiers in the right place in the sentence structure. The teacher wanted to emphasise that it is 12

His verbatim account of this, together with supplementary verbatim statements of teachers’ oral feedback practice can be found in Appendix 3B1-3. Full accounts of some of the other teacher/student interview statements only partially referred to or paraphrased in analysis can also be found in Appendix 3.

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‘the cat’ and not ‘the sister’ that loved to eat fish. We notice that he accepted both answers students A (Blessing) and B gave as correct by repeating them, although Blessing’s is in the passive voice and student B’s in the active. Dialogue extract 4.1 Incidence of ‘Flat acceptance’ in an English language lesson in PCAS Teacher: ‘…Thomas received from the sister a cat that loved to eat fish’ ‘Yah, can we now get from Olushi Blessing? Let us listen to you. Give the right, the correct version’ Blessing: ‘The cat that loved to eat fish was received from Tom … The cat that loved to eat fish was received from Tom…by Tom from his sister’. Teacher: ‘The cat…yes. The cat that loved to, to eat fish was received by Tom from his sister. That one is one of…that is also right’. Teacher: (A student puts hand up) :‘Please continue to listen. Yah’ Student B: ‘Thomas received the cat that loved to eat fish from his sister’ Teacher: ‘Yes. So we…in this…this sentence has two ways…two correct answers. Tom received a cat that loved to eat fish from his sister, is that right?’ Students: ‘Yes, Sir’.

What matters for students’ learning is not whether or not a teacher says ‘Your answer is correct’. It is whether he draws a line underneath the first acceptable response offered as this gives the impression that there is one single ‘correct answer’ to every question and what is relevant for teachers is for students to be able to produce this answer and nothing else. Certainly, some types of questions (e.g. factual questions) typically tend to have only one possible answer. Every Cameroonian student will be expected to say ‘Paul Biya’ when asked who the current president of Cameroon is, but we know such questions make little cognitive demands on students as they require them to simply recall stored information. In the dialogue above, Mr JA accepted the initial response from Blessing and asked the other students to ‘continue to listen’, thereby giving them the chance to think and try out their own answers. When accepting an answer, teachers can more readily create conditions for learning to take place when the answer is only partially correct e.g. when there is evidence the student has the idea but cannot express it clearly and completely enough. In this case, teachers can accept the validity of the

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response only as far as it goes, while indicating there is room for improvement. The following discussion with Carl:JBSS illustrates this point. KT: (…) when your answers to questions do not seem clear enough or when they are not complete, what do your teachers do? CM: The teacher usually tells us that the answer is not correct or you have answered but the answer is not quite correct, so you have to consult yourself again.

The teacher’s approach to the problem is the key for learning. Recognising that the student is wrong and making this knowledge available to him is not nearly as helpful as asking him to ‘consult yourself again’. This approach which compels the student to re-assess his opinion, which treats him as someone who should try to make sense of what he is taught, is clearly different from another in which the student, for instance, is asked to sit down for another student to answer the question on his behalf. Disappointingly, instances where acceptance was deployed to promote student learning occurred sparingly in the lessons I observed. Most of the time, teachers acknowledged students’ responses only with words and expressions like ‘correct’ that carry an air of finality in them. At times, praise and encouragement accompanied teacher approval in exchange for acceptable work and conduct. I now examine how, when and why this occurred, and lessons that can be drawn in the interest of learning. 4.2.3.2 Why and how teachers praise students In all three schools studied, students were praised for the quality of their work, the way they behave and for effort they put in to accomplish a task through encouraging remarks. When praise is for good academic work or for personal student attributes that may and may not be the product of much conscious effort on their part (e.g. for ‘being nice/happy in school’), teachers usually want to reinforce such characteristics in students. This is why even in class, praise is often given in public e.g. when a student is asked to stand up for others to see and clap for him/her after scoring highest in a test, or for being the only one to have provided a satisfactory answer to a difficult question. When praise is contingent on good conduct (e.g. for ‘doing homework as demanded’), the overarching aim is the management of discipline in schools. As Raveau (2002: 617) explains the use of certificates in English and French primary schools, ‘les écoles évoquent surtout des certificats comme un élément dans la gestion de la discipline’. That is, they are part of a positive behaviour policy that aims at

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encouraging students who behave well; to show them that their efforts are acknowledged and appreciated. This presupposes that teachers and other school authorities are aware that the mere knowledge by students of rules of proper conduct cannot guarantee their application, and that a sense of duty and responsibility even when developed, is not enough to persuade students to respect these rules. External validation in the form of rewards and encouraging remarks would be needed to help them, just like various forms of punishment exist to dissuade them from anti-social behaviour. .

‘You have done your work well’ The teachers and students I studied mentioned praise in interviews as a feature of teachers’ feedback practice and this concurs with what I observed. Students were praised verbally and in writing: in both cases, a teacher could choose to do it in private by inviting a student to his desk and speaking to him/her alone, or in public by returning their test papers to them in a way that allowed other students to see the marks and positive comments they had earned. In writing, praise was expressed through remarks like ‘Good’, ‘Very good’, ‘Excellent’ to show that the work students had done was of good quality. Commenting on how teachers in PCAS report on students’ performance after marking their test and examination scripts, Vally said: ‘When you perform well they’ll just have to say, maybe ‘Excellent’, ‘Very good’, ‘Good like that’, or ‘Work harder next time’, ‘Keep it up’, etc’. This means the teachers provide two types of written comments: brief comments summarising the extent to which a student has done well or the range he can be placed in following the scores he earned, and longer comments inviting the student to increase or maintain his/her effort as the circumstances allow. The comments do not show what is praiseworthy in students’ work nor areas where more effort is required. This suggests that it is the person of the student that is praised and not the particular aspect (s) of his work that others should emulate. Such feedback encourages performance and not learning. Orally, praise took different forms: simple words and expressions like ‘Good’, ‘That’s very good’, ‘Very good’, ‘That’s good’, ‘Beautiful’, ‘Excellent’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Well done’, ‘Congrats’, ‘Perfect’, to commend particular aspects of students’ work and conduct e.g. to recognise that a student gave precise examples to illustrate a point in her essay. When asked how teachers in his school react when students do their work well, Henry:JBSS confirmed that they expressly congratulate students.

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HF:(…) They just somehow in their own little way congratulate you. KT: And what do they say that makes you think they’ve congratulated you? HF: They can say, ‘Well done’ or ‘Perfect’, ‘Good’… KT: And what do you think… HF: …and at times they can, they can tell the class to clap for you.

Praise also took the form of elaborate statements: when a student distinguished himself from the rest in a positive manner by being the only one that answered a question correctly, Miss JN:JBSS reacted as follows: ‘I like the way he put it. Very good. It seems you are the only one who works here. Tell them’. She was clearly impressed with the way the student phrased his response; it gave her the impression that, apparently, he is unique in being the only one who understood the lesson and/or took it seriously. To her, this meant he is more knowledgeable than his peers and at that moment, deserved to be given the same authority and privilege that only teachers normally enjoy in class, to ‘tell them’, that is, to not only share his knowledge with other students but to teach them. This is a good example of feedback that can work more directly for affective learning (the elaborate praise made the student very pleased with himself) and less directly for cognitive learning. At times, teachers encouraged students for effort expended and gave them rewards in exchange for acceptable work and conduct. How rewarding are teachers’ rewards? Like with praise, teachers give rewards orally and in writing to meritorious students. Though no instances were recorded during lessons in PCAS, JBSS and GHS, post-observation interviews with research participants revealed that teachers in all three schools reward good work and conduct in several ways. Firstly, through bonus marks given to or promised to particular students verbally and in writing, to show teachers are pleased with some aspects of their work/conduct e.g. for making effort to keep one’s work neat and tidy. While discussing how he marked a student’s examination script in Geography, Mr RW:PCAS explained that he gave a student 10 on 20 and later decided to give him ‘five extra marks for diagrams’ because students ‘always show laxity to draw diagrams’ and teachers must ‘do something to encourage them’. See Appendix 3B for supplemental illustrations of how rewards and other feedback forms were referred to in teachers’ and students’ utterances during interviews. Teachers of Geography normally expect students at this level (pre-GCE class) to be able to illustrate the geographical concepts they describe in their essays with diagrams. Giving additional marks to those who do so

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means encouraging compliance with rules of classroom conduct that, otherwise, may give way to laziness. By implication, those who do not comply are ‘punished’ by not being given extra marks or by losing some of what they were supposed to earn. It is possible that some students show laxity in drawing diagrams because they do not know how to do so and giving bonus marks to others may not be the best way to help them learn the skills necessary to perform the task. So far, mention has been made of the use of marks only as teachers’ preferred method of rewarding. There is some evidence to suggest that even if it is not frequent practice, some teachers also give out physical objects like sweets (‘bonbons’ in French) and money to recognise achievement in their students. Not all teachers, however, find this practice useful for students’ learning and Miss JN:JBSS in particular explained the reason why. JN: (…) Giving the child money is not good, giving ‘bonbon’ in class…just when you are giving, you cannot tie the child down. He can put it under the locker and as you are continuing he’ll begin to eat. You’ve caused another problem. Do you punish the child for eating at the wrong time? Giving the child money very soon or something, he’ll be forced to be looking at that thing, admiring it, all those things. It’s better you leave it. Give the child a prize at the end of the year.

Even when teachers have sound reasons for rewarding students with physical objects, doing it in class may amount to doing the right thing at the wrong time, which may also cause students to do the right thing in the wrong place. The teacher is as guilty as the student if his actions result in disruptive behaviour, student inattention and distraction for which students cannot be held to account. Finally, rewards can be given through ‘encouragement’, by which is meant rewarding students simply for making effort to do the work they are assigned, ‘for trying their best even though they did not succeed’. This form of rewarding rarely occurred in the lessons I observed; the only two instances documented were in an English language lesson in JBSS where Miss JN commended a student for ‘always working so hard’ and ‘always trying to participate in discussions’ even though the contributions he made were often inappropriate. The student concerned was not as meritorious as those rewarded for academic excellence and achievement. Independently of the results he obtained, it is the act of having tried his best that justifies Miss JN’s provision of encouraging remarks and that seems to be more of a priority for her on this occasion than, say, his making progress in learning.

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This type of feedback is often promoted by teachers’ desire not to hurt students’ feelings in class. In some cases, a student who is emotionally unstable tends to receive frequent encouraging remarks e.g. ‘for making an effort to bring his books to school’ even if he refuses to comply with teachers’ instructions to take down notes in them during an entire lesson. Strain et al (1983) in the United States investigated ‘students’ compliance with teachers’ requests and the consequences for compliance’ and reported that a good proportion of positive feedback may be contingent on noncompliance. This means that the students they refer to were being exposed to misguided feedback reactions that, in themselves, are counterproductive to compliance. If the teacher in the above example wanted to get his student to comply with the rule that students have to write down what teachers ask them to in class, then responding positively when the student fails to do this will mean reinforcing non-compliance and may have a devastating effect on classroom discipline. Next, I consider instances when teachers reacted to inappropriate work and conduct in class. 4.2.3.3 Rejecting the work/conduct or rejecting the child? When students give unacceptable answers to questions in class or do not behave as expected, teachers usually react, first of all, by rejecting the answers and conduct. In PCAS, JBSS and GHS they do this in writing by means of fail marks, crosses and/or lines drawn respectively after and across the answers they reject. Orally, it took multiple forms: teachers simply saying: ‘No’, ‘Not correct’, ‘Not exactly’, ‘Wrong’, or others repeating the incorrect response in a loud tone and with an expression of surprise to indicate to students that it was in no way near what was expected of them. Rejection of ideas or disapproval counted for the majority of ‘negative’ feedback forms teachers deployed during lessons (81 instances). It featured most in Chemistry lessons in GHS and Clare referred to it when commenting on how her teachers react to incorrect answers: ‘They just say, ‘No’, they say, ‘No that’s not the correct answer.’ Indeed, what Clare said matches what Mr WL:GHS:Chem was observed to be doing in many of his lessons especially when students had been asked to balance chemical equations in their books, independently. Typically, he moved round the class to see how they were working and coming across a not-well-balanced equation, remarked: ‘Not correct’ and moved on to the next student. Here, he drew students’ attention to

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limitations in their understanding of the task at hand, which is useful for their learning, though they would arguably have benefited more if he had given them time to review their work or told them how the task was supposed to have been done. Now, let us return to Clare and talk about instances of discord in teacher and student perspectives on feedback intentions. In the conversation below involving her, another student (Student B) and Mr WL that was part of a lesson on alkaline earth metals, she seems not to understand what follow-up action teachers require of her after refusing the validity of her answers in class. Teacher: ‘Give me one reason why Calcium is not a group one element in the Periodic Table’. Clare: ‘Because…because it cannot react with other elements in group one’. Teacher: ‘No, not correct’. Student B: ‘Calcium does not have one electron in its outermost shell’ Teacher: ‘That’s correct. Did you get that Clare?’…

When, after this lesson, I questioned Clare on her teacher’s intention of saying ‘Not correct’ in this conversation, she interpreted it as an indication that the answer she gave was wrong and, therefore, the teacher had to ask someone else to give the right answer and to provide one himself if the third party failed to do so correctly. Reacting to a similar question, Mr WL said: ‘If it is wrong and you tell the person that it is wrong, it means that the person still has to work better for that particular area’. Clearly, he wanted to draw Clare’s attention to those areas in the course content where she still faces difficulty and the need for her to work harder, whereas she expected assistance to come from another student or from the teacher. This is evidence that Clare and her teacher did not interpret the situation in the same way and this can have damaging consequences on learning. If, for instance, Mr WL expected her to read notes to better understand how elements and compounds in Chemistry differ from one another, then this message did not get through. While teachers simply rejected incorrect ideas and unacceptable conduct in most of the lessons I observed, in a few cases rejection was followed by criticism in the form of verbal abuse on the victim’s person. At times, it would have been difficult for the teachers concerned to persuade others that what was being rejected and criticised was the idea proposed and not the student who proposed it. Most of the few instances of ‘criticism’ recorded featured in English language lessons in GHS where rates of disapproval appeared to show that frequent disciplinary interventions were

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associated with inappropriate behaviour. Miss EM’s utterances in these lessons consisted of constant checking and reprimanding that resulted in innumerable interruptions to the flow of the lessons. In one lesson she shouted angrily: ‘It is very rude’ when one of her students gave his textbook to a friend outside through the window. In another she frowned at a group of students speaking Pidgin English in class: ‘Who are those speaking in Pidgin of all languages?’ In yet another lesson she criticised a student who came late and sauntered majestically into class after the lesson had begun, by saying: ‘I knew only an idiot like you can do a thing like that’. When teachers criticise students for poor conduct, they assume that students are conscious of the unacceptable behaviour, and that they have internalized rules of behaviour in the classroom but voluntarily contravene them. These assumptions often overshadow attempts at finding out whether indeed the students are guilty of deliberate violation of school rules or not. In the above examples of reprimand, nothing was done to justify the feedback reactions, for instance, in terms of the moral/ethical, social and educational grounds on which they were made. That teachers do not always justify their feedback reactions with regard to criticism is not unique to secondary classrooms in Cameroon. Raveau (2002) observed the same phenomenon in some English and French primary schools: ‘La réprimande consiste principalement à affirmer que l’acte commis est répréhensible; il est rare d’entendre expliquer en quoi il l’est. Si l’enfant ne savait pas qu’il ne fallait pas agir de la sorte, il l’apprendra. Mais il l’apprenda non pas gràce à des explications, mais en étant confronté à la réaction produite par son comportement sur l’enseignant’ (2000:582).16

On the question of feedback intentions, interview data revealed that when students are criticised, some of them do not perceive the motives behind this action as the teachers concerned would want them to. I approached Miss EM:GHS, the main object of analysis in this section on ‘Criticism’, for an explanation of her actions in class and here is what she said:

16 In English this should read as follows: ‘Criticism mainly presupposes that the act which is criticised is reprehensible; it is rare that explanations are given as to why it is so considered. If the child was unaware that he was not supposed to behave in that manner, he will learn not because he has been given explanations but because he will notice the reactions his behaviour produces on the teacher’.

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Miss EM rationalised her action on pedagogical grounds; reprimanding students for underachievement is meant to point out their work is inadequate and that extra effort is needed on their part to set it right. One of her students, Laura, who herself was once a victim of verbal abuse during a lesson, understood her teacher’s feedback moves differently. She did not see any positive intention in the act of reprimanding but felt that ‘some teachers just hate some students’ and that ‘shouting at children very loud or abusing a child in class will not help the child’. Clearly, student and teacher perspectives once again run contrary to one another. The teachers I studied also expressed disapproval with poor work/conduct by threatening students and subjecting them to corporal punishment. 4.2.3.4 Is sparing the rod spoiling the African child? School rules and regulations impose restrictions on students with regard to physical appearance, relationships with adult and especially teaching staff, attitudes, manifestation of sentiments, and relationships with other students in school. In some secondary schools in Cameroon every student is expected to observe the following: put on the same uniform, or different clothes but of the same colour and sewing design, the same colour of shoe, same hairstyle for girls in boarding schools in particular, no exaggerated make-up, no fanciful jewellery unless when absolutely necessary e.g. if it is a wedding ring,. Throughout the course of the day and especially during weekly morning assemblies organised on the first day of each week, school heads, teaching and other administrative staff constantly remind students of what is authorised and what is proscribed, and work to ensure that students respect this as far as possible. In their classrooms, teachers re-emphasise rules relating to conduct in school, generally, but add others binding conduct within the confines of the classroom e.g. students are not allowed to make noise, they should listen when someone else is talking, should obtain permission to speak formally by a show of hands, should not speak out of turn. Also, they should not interrupt when the teacher or another student has the floor

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unless for a very good reason and, in which case, courtesy must be observed by use of expressions such as ‘Excuse me’, ‘May I please’. As opportunities for taking the floor are rationed and distributed to students, for instance, the classroom restricts the number of things they can do. When students fail to comply, teachers interpret this as causing friction in the social order existing in class and this is enough to attract sanctions. To many teachers in secondary schools in Cameroon, not implementing them would be spoiling the child. One way the teachers I studied implemented sanctions was by warning students and threatening them with severe consequences if they persisted with improper conduct and inadequate work. Such cases were infrequent in data; the few instances (7) coded were for improper conduct. The following examples were recorded during Mr DN’s Geography lessons in JBSS: ‘If you talk in that manner I’ll send you out’; ‘If I catch you talking out of turn I’ll treat you very badly’. These utterances were in reaction to noise-making when the teacher was explaining a concept. Later, they were found during interviews to be reflective of the teacher’s self-accounts of his feedback behaviour in situations like these, meaning that what he said he does in class is what he was observed to be doing. KT: When students do not behave properly in class or when they break errr certain rules of, of school conduct (…) how do you react in such situations? DN: Well, there are school regulations that errr are binding in the errr classroom management, errr but, at times, errr if a student is disturbing intentionally errr I give a verbal warning by scolding errr at the student. Errr if it persists, I, I have to send her out errr so that the class can errr continue.

This account confirms the assertion I made in section 4.2.3.3 that teachers sanction inappropriate conduct with the belief that it is intentionally motivated. Somehow, it sets a condition under which more severe sanctions that follow warnings and threats occur, namely, when deliberate misconduct persists. Though it seems likely that given their physical maturity, students midway through secondary school are able to distinguish acceptable from unacceptable conduct, hence, should take some responsibility for their actions in class, it is reasonable to argue that many may not intend the unfortunate outcomes their behaviour eventually produces. This is certainly a contentious and debatable issue for which further research is needed.

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Violence in the school environment Another way teachers typically deal with disruptive behaviour in secondary schools in Cameroon is by punishing students. In fact, warnings and punishments often go hand in hand as one precedes the other. Punishments are many and varied e.g. separating friends and playmates from one another, asking a child to stand up or kneel down for a determined or an undetermined period of time, asking another to stay behind after school and tidy the class, suspending students from lessons for a day, two days, or for a week, having them fill a bucket with a teaspoon full of water17, detaining students and depriving them of up to 60 minutes of their freedom at lunchtime, to mention but a few. One of the most severe of all is corporal punishment which itself varies in form: a simple twist of a child’s ear clockwise (an action many students in Cameroon describe as tuning a radio station), a slap on the back, use of rulers and whips on students’ palms or buttocks. In all cases, this is contingent on poor conduct and work of unacceptable quality. The majority of the teachers I observed did not discipline students during lessons using corporal punishment, though many of the students interviewed identified their teachers with this practice. Teachers often used other means to achieve their objectives e.g. persuasion, advice, and as mentioned before, warning and threats which, at times, were nothing more than simple bluffs. That only a few cases (3) of corporal punishment were recorded says a lot about the potential influence I, as observer, had on the teachers some of the time. It is likely that those of them who usually punish students for misconduct and for failing in tests concealed this aspect of their behaviour for fear it might not read well for an observer coming from a western society where it is no longer part of school experience. The teachers, however, articulated a great deal on the subject of punishment and one of the most memorable remarks obtained from one of them, Mr JA:PCAS:Eng, was that ‘If you spare the rod you spoil the African child’. This is an unfounded stereotype that children of African descent can only be made to learn by use of the whip; they are characteristically stubborn and not responding to this with aggression would be aggravating the situation. Such an assertion is surely easier to make than to prove and Mr JA did not go beyond simply making it in 17 This rather bizarre form of punishment was mentioned by Miss JN:GHS:Eng. Her full account of this can be found in Appendix 3B under ‘Punishment’.

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interviews. Also, his views and beliefs reflect his behaviour in class where he routinely asked students to kneel down in front of the class for about half an hour, either for failing to bring exercise books to class or for speaking in Pidgin English when responding to his question. One of these scenarios is reported below in an interaction with one of his students (Relindis). Students were expected to use their knowledge of the comparison of adjectives in English to identify grammatical errors in sentences. Teacher: ‘The second sentence is, ‘Most…Nothing is worser than losing a shoe’. What is the correct version?’ Revise that sentence…Yes, Relindis. You want to correct the sentence, correct it now’. Relindis: Nothing is…(speaks in PE; what she said was not audible enough to be picked up by the tape recorder). Teacher: Yes, but you’ll be punished for that pidgin. Go and kneel there. I’ve warned you that in my classes I don’t want to get a gist of pidgin’. ‘So, nothing is worst…nothing is worse than losing a shoe’.

That a student can be given corporal punishment only for speaking a language that is not allowed in class is not unexpected in typical secondary classrooms in Cameroon. Commenting on his reactions, here is how Mr JA justified his decision to punish Relindis. JA: Well, errr, you see, it is errr a deliberate violation of the errr regulation of the school. You know, the student come to school to learn particularly the English which is a foreign language, and you can witness it for yourself that everywhere in the campus it is written ‘No Pidgin, No Pidgin’. So, by speaking that Pidgin in class and during English language class is errr is not acceptable, is not acceptable, so I consider that a crime.

An explanation like this raises important questions for learning. Firstly, I mentioned that students are often told not to behave in a given manner but without clarification as to the reason why. They will make more meaning of school rules proscribing the use of Pidgin English if they can interpret these in the light of educational disadvantages speaking the language brings. Secondly, if a child swears or uses foul language in class, this can be described as reprehensible behaviour. Can one use the same expression when another simply uses a language that, in practical terms, is not tolerated during lessons only but goes unchecked out of class most of the time? Certainly, the degree of ‘reprehensibility’ cannot be the same in both situations and some teachers neither appear to have taken note of this difference nor to take it on board when punishing students and causing them to suffer bodily harm as a result.

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Nevertheless, what is more interesting here is that some students who are victims of the repressive act of punishment find nothing wrong with it. Perhaps this reflects their awareness and understanding of school rules and willingness to accept that contravening them must not go unpunished. On how she expects teachers to react to misconduct on her part, Doro:PCAS defended this feedback action in an unprecentedly astonishing manner. DE: De get tu ponish mi sivyie ponishmen an a get tu obé a nó get tu dis…disobé. (…) i ké na…de gi mi ponishmen fo wan wik sospenshon a get tu…a get di rait fo du de ponishmen . Na skul…a dé fo dé fo len. Eniting wé de get tu du mi a get tu risivam, a nó get tu disobé eni ticha, yes (…). Translation: DE: They have to punish me severely and I have to obey, not dis…disobey. (…) whether it is up to a week’s suspension, I have to, I have an obligation to do the punishment. I went to school to learn; any punishment I’m given I have to do it without disobeying teachers, yes (…)

The bottom position students occupy within the school power structure means they have an obligation to comply with orders from above without question, even when it is against their wish to do so. No matter what justifications teachers and even students themselves find in punishment as a weapon for discipline, it must be said that Cameroonian students of ages 16 to 17, like students the world over falling within this age range, are still adolescents with a lot to learn in terms of how to behave in society. Armed with limited knowledge and experience, they are bound to face difficulty and to make mistakes and teachers are there to help them learn. Beating them up for giving incorrect answers to questions in class, for scoring low in tests, or for producing work of doubtful quality deprives them of opportunities to focus on tasks they are given in school in a productive manner. It is appropriate now to discuss the incidence of ‘neutral’ feedback forms in lessons. 4.2.3.5 Making students think in the feedback process When students do not do well in their work and conduct, this provides a good opportunity for learning to take place. As many have argued (e.g. Corder, 1981), the errors students make provide a window through which teachers can have access to their thought processes and problem-solving strategies. They also enable teachers to make a critique of their teaching styles, especially when there is evidence that when completing tasks students may have been misguided in their thinking by poor explanation of

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subject matter, or teaching approaches that were inherently limiting. While the Cameroonian teachers I studied, at times, resorted to criticism, warning and punishments in the face of student errors as the foregoing analyses revealed, on other occasions some of them showed their sensitivity to the need to make errors an opportunity for learning. One way in which they did this was through the use of probes, clues, ‘retrial’ and ‘advice’. As common denominator, these feedback forms enable students to think over their problem-solving strategies rather than about whether their answers are correct or incorrect. Say why you think that answer is correct Probing students tests their ability to display deep knowledge and understanding of what they are trying to say. After evaluating students’ answers to questions, teachers in PCAS, JBSS and GHS achieved this by asking them to ‘give an example’, to ‘say more on that’, to ‘explain why and how’, to ‘expand further’, ‘to explain better’, to justify an opinion or say why they think an answer is correct or incorrect. When asked to say how she reacts when a student gives an acceptable answer to a question in class, Miss EM mentioned several possibilities amongst which was the following: ‘I can ask him to try to throw more light on the answer: ‘ Can you try to say why you think that answer is correct?’ When teachers use probes, they usually do not intend to reject the validity of a student’s academic contribution outright, and do not wish to give the impression that what counts is for students to get the answer right. What is important is whether they are able to think and to defend their opinions. Therefore, even when students are able to overcome difficulties unaided, a teacher intent on promoting learning through feedback will probe to know from them how the difficulties were resolved. Mr JA, for example, explained during interviews that when students in his class are given work to do and they do it successfully, he will ask them to ‘elaborate’ and to say ‘how they managed to come out with their answers’. This means he will give opportunities for them to recount individual experiences they had when completing the tasks, rather than assuming they know what they were doing simply because they were able to do it correctly. The following extract from a Geography lesson on migration in JBSS illustrates how probes occurred during lessons. Mr DN asked to know some of the favourable conditions in towns and cities that promote rural exodus. The response a student offered was acceptable but from the

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teacher’s viewpoint, not good enough and needed expansion. Teacher: ‘Now, looking at migration, people would like to move…from areas where conditions are harsh to areas where conditions are, are favourable as we said. And errr looking at our towns…what would be some of the favourable conditions compared to the village? Student: ‘Job opportunities’ Teacher: ‘Yes, like what? What type of jobs in towns? Give an example’. Student: ‘Like truck pushing…’ Teacher: (Students and teacher laugh): ‘Yes, ah! You are laughing? Is that not a job?’

On the question of feedback intentions, I noticed disagreement regarding what teachers and students think teachers are doing when asking students to clarify. In a later interview, Mr DN talked about his feedback intention of probing in writing and not orally as in the dialogue above, as being to let students know that in order to obtain full marks for a particular section of a test, their responses to questions related to that section must be complete. On the contrary, one of his students, Carl, thought it is to ascertain if the initial point students made that needed clarification was originally theirs and not borrowed from someone else. CM: In most cases you might have written an answer but without no explanation. So, the teacher may be trying to see if you really know or you just stole the answer somewhere. So, the teacher is trying to see if you really did it by yourself by asking for explanation. We can tell from this that teachers are not always confident that the performance of certain students in assessment tasks reflects their true abilities; some may be claiming knowledge that is not rightfully theirs. All the same, even if probe questions were asked for the reason Carl gave, it would mean that teachers are conscious that probing plays an important role in learning: it enables teachers to determine if students have understood concepts at a surface or a deep level. If they were simply memorized and simply recalled, it would be difficult for students to articulate them in as much depth as probing requires of them.

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Promoting reflection through clueing The teachers I observed provided students with hints in some lessons to help them arrive at desired responses during question and answer sessions. In this process, students were not provided with the exact answers required but with a starting point from where they had to continue. By so doing, teachers laid the foundation for learning on which students could build, which means they had to think about what materials to select and how best to put them together to produce a solid structure. According to observational data, ‘Clue’ did not feature high in the ‘neutral’ feedback subgroup, with only 38 instances recorded in all schools. Mr RW:PCAS:Geo is one of three teachers who referred to clueing during post-observation discussions. Dialogue extract 4.2 is an illustration of how clues were provided in one of his lessons that revised the concept of erosion in the limestone region, to which students had been introduced in a previous lesson. In the dialogue, Mr RW did not criticise Mukala for expressing difficulty attempting the task when she said: ‘I don’t know how to put it’. He realised the student has got some knowledge of her own about erosion that can be tapped and he took advantage of this by giving hints which enabled her to think and to explain the concept in the way she understands it. In addition, asking students to ‘explain erosion’ gave them the chance to demonstrate deep learning. Such an open-ended question does not require students to simply say ‘what’ erosion is – some can easily memorise and reproduce definitions verbatim – but ‘how’ it is formed. The question demands more complex analysis of materials that only those students who really understood the lesson when it was taught can be capable of. Without doubt, feedback moves of this nature encourage cognitive learning.

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Dialogue extract 4.2 Incidence of ‘Clue’ in a Geography lesson Teacher: ‘Who can explain erosion as he understood it during our last lesson?’ (Students remain silent) Teacher: ‘Mukala, do you want to try?’ Mukala: ‘It is when…Erosion occurs when…I don’t know how to put it… Teacher (Provides clue): ‘Remember what your mothers do in the kitchen when preparing ‘achu’18. Mukala: ‘Erosion is when…for example, when you put ‘akangwa’ into hot water it melts’. Teacher: ‘Yes, you are right but ‘akangwa’ is not an English word’. Mukala: ‘When you put limestone into hot water it melts’. Teacher: ‘Excellent. So what type of erosion did Mukala describe? Erosion by…’ Students (In chorus): ‘Erosion by solution’. Teacher: ‘Now, use that to explain erosion that takes place in a limestone region’. Mukala: ‘Erosion occurs when limestone touches…touches…when limestone comes into contact with salt water and loss some of its properties’. Teacher: ‘Thank you…’ Think over it and try again When students go wrong in their work, giving them the chance to ‘try again’ or to ‘do it again’ either verbally or in writing is another way of getting them to think about the task. What teachers seem to be emphasising when this happens is that a battle may have been lost when students did not get it right the first time but not the entire war. This represents a call for a review of problem-solving techniques in the light of new information that will be made available to them. Opportunities for self-critique and self-adjustment are therefore unquestionably essential for learning. Disappointingly, I recorded very few instances of these (13) in the schools studied, two of which were particularly telling. During a Geography lesson on ‘Characteristic Features of lowland glaciation’ held in PCAS, Mr RW asked a student what a boulder is. Not satisfied with the 18

A traditional dish popular in certain regions and tribes of the North West Province of Cameroon. It consists of pounded cocoyams (a tuber) served with sauce that is prepared after diluting limestone in hot water. Hot water dissolves limestone in the same way as salty water does in cast topography.

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response given, he said: ‘It is short of something; think well before answering’. One of his students, Vally, referred to this feature of classroom practice. KT: (…) when your answers to questions do not seem clear or complete enough, what do your teachers do? VA: Well, in that case they encourage us (…) to think well because answering a question depends on how you are thinking. Yes, they encourage us to think well and answering questions better than we did.

When students’ responses to questions are inadequate, a teacher who is concerned with learning will give them a second chance to think well before answering again so as to improve the quality of what they will subsequently produce. In another example drawn from JBSS, Miss JN gave students several opportunities to correct themselves after initially failing to pronounce the word ‘Police’ correctly during a revision lesson. Reacting to this later on in a post-observation interview, one of her students, Henry, welcomed such opportunities, arguing that it gives room for alternative ideas to be tried out which, otherwise, would remain buried in the mind. It is clear, therefore, that ‘retrial’ is useful for learning and its under-representation in data suggests that some of the teachers researched have not fully recognised its importance. Teachers and students thinking feedback through As a reminder, the feedback category, ‘Advice’ involves the teacher working in close partnership with a student or group of students to collaboratively identify deficiencies in their work or conduct, think through these and identify the way forward. Regrettably, the tape-recorder captured none of the 14 instances recorded in lessons in a way as would enable them to be reported here meaningfully. This is perhaps because intervening background noise from the typically overcrowded classrooms often obscured students’ and teachers’ voices when they were involved in group discussions. Analysis of the category therefore took account more of what I directly observed teachers to be doing and how a few of them talked about aspects of their feedback practice that, in many ways, are related to guided construction of knowledge. The best illustration of how this works in lessons can be seen in the following excerpt from an interview with Miss EM:GHS:Eng, who captured her experience of personally attending to students facing difficulties during problem-solving, in the following words:

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Students faced difficulty when attempting a reading comprehension exercise and Miss EM used their own words to identify the specific areas that were of concern to them. There is plenty of evidence of ‘scaffolded’ teaching in the statement. Both Miss EM and her students worked together to locate problem areas with the teacher probing the students’ own views in this process. Together they co-constructed what the students were supposed to do to make their work better. Notice how Miss EM places emphasis on the collective handling of tasks. It is not ‘Let me look at this. Let me try to work and see if I’m able to…’, but ‘let’s look at this. Let’s try to work…’. Similarly, it is not ‘I did it’, but ‘we did it’. Such teacher intervention will more easily feature in lessons where students are assigned tasks to do in class; also where teachers are prepared to monitor individuals as they work. It is no surprise, then, that no such occurrences were noticed in all 10 Geography lessons in PCAS and JBSS where instruction was largely in the form of monologic transmission of knowledge through dictation and explanation of copious notes. The situation was altogether different in English language lessons in all three schools where Mr JA, Miss JN and Miss EM often organised and supervised group work. On such occasions they individualised teaching and feedback practice, attending to students on a one-on-one basis as soon as they noticed students were having trouble in completing tasks. Typically, they helped with identifying error zones in students’ work but gave them the responsibility to find a way out themselves. When teachers work this way they act as facilitators whose job it is, as constructivists would say, to guide the less knowledgeable learner to cross the threshold of actual development and to personalize learning. The next type of

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feedback to be considered in analysis is teacher and peer corrections. 4.2.3.6 Teachers and corrective feedback When students fail to provide acceptable responses to questions, cannot respond when asked a question or express difficulty in their work, the quickest and perhaps easiest way teachers can make them know what to do is by telling or showing them immediately (i.e providing them with corrective feedback). Compared to other feedback forms that invite students to think over a task, corrective feedback is certainly not the best option for learning. There is a chance that since they are not involved in the search for solutions, those with little or no interest in the task may simply copy the solution without learning anything from it. Nonetheless, correcting students is arguably more helpful than criticising, warning or punishing them. To the serious student, it reveals teachers’ preferred problem-solving strategies which they can usefully draw on when presented with tasks of a similar nature in future. The teachers I studied in Cameroon made use of this feedback form in two ways: correcting students themselves and asking their peers to help. Teacher correction Examples of this were provided verbally and in writing in all three schools, mainly in the form of formative comments. For example, analysis of written work in JBSS revealed that when marking, Miss JN:JBSS sometimes provided comments pointing out types of errors students had committed e.g. areas where they omitted words or expressions and indicated what was supposed to be there. The following illustration from one of her students, Henry, confirms the assertion I made in section 4.2.2.1 that the practice of providing more detailed comments is more common in English language classrooms. KT: (…) Errr do your teachers put comments on your work as well or do they put only marks? HF: Yes, especially in English. Where you have cancelled a lot, the teacher may write ‘Dirty work’, where you have given material which is not required he’ll tell you ‘Off- topic’, and they can tell you, ‘Poor ponctu…poor punctuation’ and all the like.

When approached to discuss a few examples of such comments I found on students’ work appended, Miss JN acknowledged she wrote them.

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Some of the teachers also made use of written signs as formative feedback: lines, circles, question marks, that show specific areas in an essay, for instance, where a word has been omitted or wrongly spelt. These signs also help students interpret marking decisions e.g. why ticks were put in some places and circles in others. Of course, signs will make no sense to students if they are not told in advance what they mean. That is why Miss EM:GHS places importance on explaining them to students. EM: (…) It’s good because if for example, where I put rings I come to class and insist. I tell them that ‘Where you see rings know that there is something wrong with it. It could be the tense that is wrong, it could be the spelling that is wrong. So, try to find out the correct form of that word and write it in your exercise book’. I do that. In other cases where I can put a tick and cross the tick, that means it’s half the mark, you don’t have the full mark there, it’s half the mark. But I always come to class and tell them all those little rubriques I’ve used and when I cross it out maybe I’ve not considered that section. I just put one line across; I’ve not considered that section. But where I mark it wrong or right, it means you had it either wrong or you had it fully correct.

Written signs and comments are helpful for learning in many ways: when planning remedial action, students will concentrate only on areas that give them the most difficulty and will spare energy and time. In addition, such feedback often requires students to do corrections on failed items on written work and, in this process, to learn how they were supposed to approach tasks. The dialogue below shows how Miss JN provided corrective feedback orally during a lesson. After identifying errors in students’ essays, she opted herself to point out the shortcomings she perceived in the way they approached the task given. ‘Why are you putting salutations? We are speaking of the points. You don’t have…you, you are writing an essay. What’s the essence of the salutation? You are not writing a talk; you’re not writing a speech; you are not even writing a debate; you’re writing an essay. You cannot be talking about salutation in the essay. You cannot be including greetings in the essay’.

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Sample of a student’s homework showing corrective feedback comments

The task involved writing an argumentative essay on why forests should or should not be invaded by farmers in search for wood or food. The teacher, seemingly, did not expect students to include in their answers salutations like ‘Distinguished ladies and gentlemen’, ‘Dear Sir/Madam’, that are characteristic of speeches. The fact that she immediately drew their

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attention to the problem means she also gave them an opportunity to immediately learn from their errors. This is one of the ways teachers’ corrections work for learning, but what about peer correction? Peer Correction In Chemistry lessons in GHS, Mr WL was fond of soliciting peer support when his students had difficulty balancing chemical equations on the board. Often, peer intervention took the form of volunteered rather than solicited responses whispered or given overtly, especially when these consisted only of single words or short phrases. His classroom behaviour matches his account of it during interviews. KT (…) Now, if another student hesitates to errr answer a question or if they say they don’t know the answer, simply, what would be your reaction? WL: I’ll, I’ll move on to the next student. I’ll …maybe if I ask the student to stand up I’ll say, ‘Can you help him?’(…)‘Can you help him?’ Are you all knowing? That is why we have two hands even, one hand helping…one, one hand cannot tie a bundle; the two hands have to move together.

The concept of ‘one hand cannot tie a bundle’ where learning is concerned is justifiable. Students, like everyone else, are not perfect and can always learn from a third party. As long as students themselves recognise that no one is the sole keeper of knowledge and that friends of the same age group and level of education can also provide useful support in time of need, they too, like some of their teachers, will take peer assistance seriously. It would appear from the foregoing that some of the teachers I studied are aware of the advantages of encouraging students to learn from their classmates. So far, we have seen how the teachers I studied deployed feedback in different ways. To be analysed, finally, are instances when they did not expressly deploy feedback when they ought to. 4.2.3.7 When teachers do not deploy feedback When students behaved in a given manner or said something that required teachers to react in one way or another, they did explicitly react in the majority of cases (213 instances in PCAS, 244 in JBSS, and 351 in GHS). Only very rarely were teachers observed during lessons (15 occasions) to ignore students and to carry on with lessons. This is consistent with findings of an earlier study I conducted in the United Kingdom (see Tangie, 2015). The most revealing examples of ‘No Explicit Feedback’ were recorded in PCAS. During one English language lesson, Mr JA put

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questions on the board exploiting the use of adjectives and adverbs and called students up one after another to identify, orally, cases in which these had been wrongly used. He did not react explicitly to proposals from particular students, which caused confusion to the extent that some of them openly expressed disapproval. It was evident from their murmuring that they did not know whether the teacher approved or did not approve of their reasoning. Thus, any misunderstanding they could have had in their learning at the time about how adjectives and adverbs work in sentences would have passed unnoticed and, hence, remained unresolved. This conduct was certainly going to be greeted with scorn during student interviews. We shall see in the following statement how Doro, one of Mr JA’s students, felt about it. DE: Tu mi, a tink de ticha dem bi di hep fo ki wi bicos wi ni di nó weda wi dé rait or rong. De di hep fo mek wi wi wok bihain insted of muv fowod, wi wok na bihain. An de ni di tel wi, de ni di tel wi weda wi dé rait or rong. Translation DE: To me, I think that those teachers were helping to ‘kill’ us because we did not know whether we were right or wrong, yes. They are helping to make us move backwards in our learning instead of moving forward. And they did not tell us, they did not tell us whether we were right or wrong.

The word ‘kill’ is used metaphorically, to mean teachers who fail to provide feedback are only helping students to fail in their learning. The task Mr JA presented his students with was probably aimed at making them learn not only to use adjectives and adverbs in English, but also to recognise instances when other people use them inappropriately. To be able to learn this, Doro and her classmates have to practise doing the exercise. When the teacher ignored the answers some of them gave it is possible they were left uncertain and confused about which version/form of knowledge they hold is right, thus should be preserved, and which should be discarded. Commenting on this subject, Mr RW:PCAS:Geo who himself happened to have been guilty of the zero feedback syndrome, agreed that ‘if you take that type of action you’ll leave the students more confused’.

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Fig. 4.10 Comparing the presence & absence of feedback in teacher talk (%) 120

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Teachers also fail to provide feedback on written work. Analysis of students’ exercises and homework also revealed that quite often, some teachers (e.g. Mr DN:GHS) do not mark assignments and homework students have been assigned before introducing new work, additional evidence that students do not get feedback when required all the time. I presented samples of exercises not marked to one of his students, Carl, to get his reaction. KT: Emmm, this errr is, is homework that your teacher gave you and then emmm, yes, you, you did it, but we can see there is no indication that the work was marked by the, the teacher because we don’t see any errr score anywhere, we don’t see any comment anywhere. Errr does it mean that you did not give your work to your teacher for marking? CM: We never take the work to our teacher but the teacher also never asks for, for it.

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KT: Ehemn. OK… Tell me; when do you do an exercise like this one and then you, you come to class then you move over to some other topic when the teacher has not looked over it to tell you whether you’ve done it well or not, what do you think about it? CM: I think the teacher is wrong because he has not even cared to see if the assignment he gave last class was done or not, and if the, the assignment was correct or not.

For students, the situation of no feedback on previous work will be worse if understanding of subsequent lessons depends, considerably, on mastery of concepts introduced in earlier ones that were assessed and on which feedback was never given. If students have not been provided with evaluative expertise and so are not skilled and autonomous enough to engage in self-monitoring of their work in the way that Sadler (1989:237) describes, it would be difficult for them to tell whether or not they did master concepts tested via homework. Sadler argues that for students to be able to generate feedback information themselves about their own work, classroom instructional systems should provide them with ‘direct evaluative experience’ that will enable them to continuously monitor the quality of what they produce ‘during the act of production itself’. A condition under which no explicit feedback can be tenable is that students comprehend the meaning of the teacher’s silence or non-reaction. Frequently, teachers’ observed silence that is contingent on a student’s response may not necessarily reflect the absence of feedback; silence may contain an implicit message which can be deciphered if both teachers and students share an understanding of the implied meanings of unarticulated utterances e.g. through bodily expressions that sometimes accompany them. For instance, a teacher may simply redirect his focus and a question he asked before to another student to show (without having to say so) that he considers all responses given earlier to be incorrect. His intention in this case may be to promote learning by allowing the first student to think over his initial response, and the student must be able to understand the teacher’s non-verbal feedback cues and corresponding intentions for learning to result. It is also possible that, given the multiplicity and complexity of activities that make up any one lesson, the teacher might simply ignore students without taking any notice of it. By and large, if we agree with Butler (1987:474) that repeated non-receipt of information about performance will undermine task-involvement and result in lower results of both interest and performance, then provision of feedback will enhance students’ perception of the task as something relevant to develop mastery in it.

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4.3 Conclusion This chapter examined the way six Cameroonian teachers understand the concept of ‘feedback’ as used in the school context, the types of feedback they deploy orally and in writing in response to students’ academic work and conduct, and the intentions associated with the forms of feedback they deploy. The evidence reported suggests that the teachers have very clear ideas about how to report students’ performances, they were found to be making use of a wide variety of feedback forms in their lessons even if, by so doing, they were not always aware they were providing feedback. On some occasions, they deployed feedback in a manner likely to promote cognitive skill development in students, while, on other occasions, they did not. Finally, students, at times, interpreted their teachers’ communicative intentions when providing certain forms of feedback as teachers wanted them to and, at times, did not. This implies that even when the teachers I studied put in effort to give feedback of the kind that can facilitate learning, it is possible that some of their students do not benefit fully from it. The next chapter further explores the issue of learning.

CHAPTER FIVE THE FEEDBACK-LEARNING RELATIONSHIP IN ANGLOPHONE CAMEROON SECONDARY SCHOOLS

5.0 Introduction This chapter pursues the issue of feedback practice in relation to learning. In analysis I look at the possible relations between each feedback form discussed in the preceding chapter and learning, and also examine evidence of students’ learning and the extent to which this was the result of teachers’ feedback. Given the qualitative approach taken to investigate the research question, I will rely primarily on teachers’ and students’ interview accounts of the perceived relevance of each feedback form to learning and, where possible, on observational evidence of particular feedback forms at work during lessons.

5.1 How do various feedback forms work in learning? Teachers help determine the context in which feedback talk occurs e.g. who it should be addressed to, how it should be structured, when and how it should be provided, and whether it should be organised and deployed in a way that facilitates students’ learning or not. In this regard, a teacher can decide to simply pass over assessment information to students in a unidirectional topdown fashion, while another will engage students in the feedback provision activity in a way that creates dialogic interaction between the two groups. The type of learning that results from teachers’ feedback choices in these situations cannot be the same; for students, learning or not learning will depend, amongst other things, on the type of feedback teachers choose to provide. That is, whether they decide to simply accept responses, to accept and probe for more information, to simply reject responses, to reject and punish student as a result. Let us begin discussion in this section by examining how the use of probes, clues, and retrial work in learning.

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5.1.1 Probes, clues and retrial: serving the interest of learning These three forms of feedback have similar characteristics in the role they play in learning: they enable students to understand lesson content, encourage thinking and the regulation of students’ cognitive processes, and promote student autonomy. 5.1.1.1 Enabling students to understand lesson content The dialogue extract below shows how Mr JA:PCAS:Eng used probes and created opportunities for self-assessment and retrial during a lesson, which helped students understand how adverbs are used in a language. We notice that his choice of an open-ended question at the very outset was helpful in enabling students to think about the task in order to figure out what it was all about. Dialogue extract 5.1 from an English language lesson in PCAS Context: The lesson was held in Class 4 B with 84 students participating, including Vally, one of the students that was the focus of observation. The lesson treated the use of adverbs in English language and seems to be a follow-up to a previus one that treated adjectives. After writing the topic ‘Adverbs’ on the board, Mr JA tried to explain the morphological composition of the word to help students understand how it serves language. We can tell he achieved this by his reaction to the answer Vally offered. Teacher: (Addresses class) ‘Look at this prefix ‘ad’. What comes into your mind when you hear ‘ad’? What do you think of?’ (Students remain silent) Teacher: ‘Look at this prefix ‘ad’.. it means what? Student A: ‘Please Sir, it means that we must add…add something behind the…adjective’. Teacher: ‘That we should add more. And then we are adding more to what? Students murmur variously and in chorus: ‘Adjective’, ‘Adverb’, ‘Verb’. Teacher: ‘We are adding more to what?’ Students murmur variously and in chorus: ‘Adverb’, ‘Verb’, ‘To the verb’.

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Teacher: ‘Yes, say it aloud, na [i.e. will you]!’ Student B: ‘To the verb’. Teacher: ‘Yes, we are adding more to the verb. And we are adding more what to the verb? Students (Variously): ‘Adverb’, ‘More adjective’. Teacher: ‘More adjectives? No. We are adding more what to the verb? Student B: ‘Adverb’ Teacher: Silent Vally: ‘We are adding more meaning to the verb’. Teacher: ‘Good. We are adding more meaning to the verb. Therefore an adverb modifies a verb or adds more meaning to a verb…’ When students either did not respond altogether or failed to respond satisfactorily to his questions, he repeated them rather than simply providing the desired answers thereby compelling them to think and to react. Again, when an incomplete response is given, he only partially accepted it and probed for more explanation (line 7) that stimulated their thought processes so they could elaborate on what they had to say. Vally’s intervention (line 20) indicates that the use of probes earlier in the verbal exchange with Mr JA enabled him to understand how adverbs work in English language. Interview evidence from students shows that when teachers reject their work and give them further opportunities to correct themselves, they recognise this as helpful for learning and also associate it with good professional practice. In the following conversation, Henry explained a personal experience when one of his teachers was not very pleased with the way he approached an exercise in Maths and asked him to ‘do research’ and improve on the quality of his work. When I asked why he considered this useful, he offered this response: HF: (…) when I do research I may not forget easily because I know I’m the one who errr I, I found out the solutions to some problems. So, I may not forget easily. KT: OK HF: That’s what I think. KT: OK. Now, how does that help you to make improvements on your work? HF: Well, when I make research I may not only look for that particular approach in Mathematics; I may also tend to look at other parts, even things…other topics, even things we’ve not yet done and some other ones that we’ve done which I never understood well, and gather some other left out material that the teacher never gave in class.

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Asking Henry to do independent research to improve his problem-solving skills in Maths enabled him to experience deep learning because he cannot easily forget new knowledge acquired through independent investigation. Such knowledge is likely to become part and parcel of his daily existence. James (1998:181) agrees that deeper understanding resulting from greater cognitive engagement leads to learning because ‘what is learnt ‘is owned by the learner in the sense that it becomes a fundamental part of the way he or she understands the world; it is not simply ephemeral knowledge that may be memorised for recall in examination but subsequently forgotten’. The research experience also offered opportunities for extra knowledge to be acquired e.g. on other topics in Maths not yet treated in class. Perhaps most important is the fact that while looking for solutions himself, the student was now able to understand better concepts not well assimilated in class. It is reasonable to suggest again that research helped in improving his thinking given that cognitive processes like high-order reasoning and reflection are normally associated with research activity. 5.1.1.2 Regulating cognitive processes To Alexander (2000:430), ‘the talk that takes place between teachers and pupils…is not a mere vehicle for the exchange of information. It is a vital tool for learning’. We saw in the dialogue extract in section 5.1.1.1 how a teacher used open-ended questions/probes to elicit explanations from students during a lesson. We also noted that such mind-blowing questions encourage high-level thinking of the kind that, admittedly, not all students are invited to engage in. Probes, clues and opportunities for retrial create interactions between teachers and students during which they open up discussions and invite students to engage in conversation with their questioners in an active and sustained manner. Many (see Nystrand et al, 1990) have argued persuasively that learning is more likely to occur in such interactions because they enable teachers to develop students’ cognitive processes through the use of language. Interviews with Mr DN:JBSS revealed that like probes, clues also encourage thinking in students. I noticed in some of his lessons that when a student had been called up to answer a question, stood up and hesitated (apparently students were shy and not too confident of what they had to say), he made the question simpler by using less complex terminology. This helped them understand the question better. As the teacher himself explained, ‘I may try to put the question in a milder form or using different words so that the student may understand because sometimes, the

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language may be the problem’. I asked to know how this action works for learning. KT: And in such a situation errr do you think that helps the student’s learning? DN: Errr, yes, it helps because sometimes errr I may point to an area that the student errr knows very well that may help out to maybe link up. Sometimes, it may even be a correlation of errr subjects, you see, a student could use knowledge of Biology to answer a question in Geography or even Economics, ehemn.

His approach enables cognitive processing of information. By using less complex terminology, he was able to help students create an interdisciplinary network of knowledge and to draw on resources in one discipline for problem-solving in another. This, it should be acknowledged, is an intellectually demanding activity. Using knowledge across several disciplines involves associations that require some of the ‘higher forms of mental activity’ Kozulin (1990), talks about. Examples include critical reflection, attention, logical problem-solving, planning and evaluation. 5.1.1.3 Promoting learner autonomy A teacher with interest in making students learn will value the errors they make while doing exercises in class/at home, for the insights they reveal about how students are thinking. Such a teacher will also encourage students to view errors as valuable learning opportunities rather than as indicators of failure in the learning process. One way of making students learn from their errors is providing them with guidance and assessment strategies and allowing them to assess and correct their own work. This also makes them autonomous in the learning process. Let us examine a conversation between Mr WL and Clare, one of the students observed during a Chemistry lesson in GHS that revised ‘The preparation of some compounds of the alkaline earth metals and hardness of water’. Teacher: ‘Last time…last lesson we talked about temporary and permanent hard water. What do we mean when we say water is hard?’ Clare: ‘When the water forms ice’. Teacher: ‘No, that’s not what we said. We said that…who can remember what we said when we gave the example of rain water?’ Clare: ‘Yes, Sir. Rainwater…hard water is water that does not foam’ Teacher: ‘Good. It is water that reacts with soap or other chemicals and does not lather or foam as Clare said’.

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Clare’s initial response: ‘When the water forms ice’ leads us to believe that she understands the concept of states of matter in Chemistry, at least, at a rudimentary level. She understands, for instance, that substances can change their states and assume other states; thus when water freezes at 0° C, it forms ice (changing from liquid to solid) and becomes hard. What Clare failed to realise is that the expression ‘hardness of water’ in the teacher’s question was used in a technical sense to refer to an altogether different reality. We notice, however, that despite failing the first time, she did not give up trying to answer the question and finally got the answer right with the help of the teacher’s clue which reminded her of what was said in a previous lesson about rainwater. This suggests that the student was able to make self-judgements and self-adjustments cognitively, thus becoming autonomous in the correction activity. Perhaps none of these would have happened if the teacher simply rejected her initial response and/or offered the expected answer himself1. In the next section, I examine how collaborative feedback practice works in learning.

5.1.2 Promoting learning through collaborative feedback practice When teachers work in partnership with students to construct feedback, they build close, strong and productive relationships with one another; in this process, students also develop problem-solving skills that make them self-reliant when next they are asked to work through tasks on their own.

1

All of this means that James (1998) had reason to argue that self-assessment should not be regarded as an optional extra, but must be an integral part of any assessment that aspires to have a positive effect in learning. Because it involves what Sadler (1989) refers to as ‘self-monitoring’, students are able to generate feedback about the quality of their performance. As we saw in the dialogue above, self-assessment led to self-regulation which Sadler (op.cit.) also believes students should engage in. As he put it, ‘a student who automatically follows the diagnostic prescription of the teacher without understanding its processes or orientation will not learn’. At times, students have to be autonomous in their learning because learning cannot be done for them by teachers. If a student can not plan and carry out systematic remedial work for him/herself, he or she will not be able to make use of good feedback teachers provide through probes, clues and opportunities for retrial.

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5.1.2.1 Building effective teacher-student relationships In the schools I studied in Cameroon, only English language teachers helped students to find ways of addressing problems they have in learning by responding to their needs at a personal level. The explanation for this is that only such teachers organised collaborative learning activities (e.g. group work) in class that enabled them to individualise feedback practice. When I asked Mr JA:PCAS how useful this approach is to students, he stressed that: JA: (…) this itself…in itself is very important because there must be there…the teacher-student relationship. And so, when you get closer to your students first of all there is that love that brings you nearer the student; the students are not scared from their teacher. And then they will always want to bring their problems to you to solve, unlike when you are very harsh to them or you don’t even pay… take care errr whenever they have problems.

We already know that working collaboratively with students to identify weaknesses in their work means recognising their own contributions to the knowledge-construction process. From Mr JA’s statement, we have also learnt that it builds rapprochement and promotes cordial student-teacher entente. It shows that the teacher is interested in students’ progress. This breaks artificial social barriers between them, encouraging students to bring up their difficulties as they arise and not to shy away. When students are convinced of a teacher’s interest in their studies (because he gives them special attention) they are not likely to dislike his subject but may make use of this special attention to improve on the quality of their work. 5.1.2.2 Developing problem-solving skills: a basis for self-reliance To Miss JN:JBSS, collaborative problem-solving provides opportunities for some students to raise particular concerns and anxieties with teachers that they may have neither the time nor the courage to do in class (some students would not want to wash their dirty linen in public for fear of being laughed at). Such opportunities are also used to discuss students’ worries in detail. When teachers are unable or unwilling to help out immediately, they usually refer students to alternative sources where they can find help e.g. textbooks and journals where extra information is usually stored. Miss JN argued that from her experience, students in her class who, at some point in their studies, had the privilege of being

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attended to in this way, opted for ‘outside help’ (i.e. from textbooks) when next they faced setbacks and did not require her intervention all the time. JN: (…) it helps them in that from there henceforth the child might even want to errr errr know… be rushing…if he manages to lay hand on the schemes…the scheme he might even read more than you. In fact, he will want to discover more…many more things rather than just waiting for you the teacher…

This means they had been encouraged to be self-reliant and responsible.2 Miss JN claimed, for instance, that some of the students tend to read ahead of the teacher e.g. on additional curriculum-related material not yet treated in class. It also implies that they internalised problem-solving strategies through adult assistance. In Vygotsky’s (1978) terms, they reached the Zone of Proximal Development in their learning through the process of scaffolding. Notice that the students had reached a point where they could no longer move forward in their learning. By presenting their worries to the teacher, they had diagnosed their problems themselves but now needed someone, a more experienced adult, to help them move forward. I will now examine how correcting students either directly (by the teacher) or indirectly (by peers) when they go wrong in their work, serves learning.

5.1.3 Corrective feedback and classroom learning Analysis of observational evidence from PCAS, JBSS and GHS revealed that correcting helps to update students’ previous knowledge, teach them new ways of doing things, and involve them in problem-solving activities. 5.1.3.1 Updating prior knowledge and understanding Bloom (1981) asserts that ‘…feedback corrective procedures are one major method for ensuring that cognitive entry characteristics3 are 2

To Mitchell and Myles (1998:161), students are able to do this when instructional discourse they are exposed to is ‘dialogic’. As they explained, ‘dialogic communication is seen as central to the joint construction of knowledge which is first developed intermentally (between the teacher and the student), and then appropriated and internalised by the student intramentally. 3 ‘Cognitive entry characteristics’, according to Bloom, refers to the nature of previous knowledge, skills and understandings a student has in a given subject/discipline prior to beginning studies in the subject at a higher level. These skills and understandings are alterable through the use of corrective feedback; they may be learned if they are absent in the student, may be reviewed if they had been

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developed adequately for almost all students’ (p. 5), and that when assessment feedback ‘is provided in relation to corrective procedures to help the student correct the learning errors…most students can reach the standard of achievement set by the teacher’ (p. 7). The dialogue below between Miss EM and one of her students in GHS illustrates how teacher correction helped students learn new information that enabled them to update their knowledge/understanding of the subject-verb agreement rule in English. The lesson aimed at teaching students how to write a dialogue and the scenario chosen on this occasion was between an employer and a prospective employee. Students were asked to work in groups with the leader of each group required to do a presentation on the group’s work to the entire class. The leader of one group, Obi, presented her group’s work and Miss EM called on her classmates to carry out peer assessment. Teacher: ‘Did you find anything wrong with Obi’s work?’ Student: ‘She said, ‘What are your experience?’ Teacher: ‘It is supposed to be…?’ Student: ‘What are your experiences’ Teacher: ‘What is your experience’ Teacher follows up with a detailed explanation of why ‘are’ is inappropriate in the sentence.

Obi and her friends had come up with a question, ‘What are your experience?’, which the ‘employer’ was supposed to have asked to determine how much work-related experience the ‘applicant’ had got in order to decide whether to employ him or not. After Obi’s exposé, one of her classmates did not find her formulation appropriate; he felt it would be more suitable if the word ‘experience’ carried an ‘s’ to agree with the verb ‘are’. The teacher’s final intervention shows that both students got it wrong and needed to be corrected immediately. We can tell from the dialogue that the student already knows the subjectverb agreement rule in language use and can tell that when the plural verb ‘are’ is used, the noun head it relates to has to be in plural as well, so should take an ‘s’. What she does not yet know is that within the context of a job application, it is more suitable to say ‘What is your experience’ given the interviewer’s intention. Miss EM was able to update the student’s previous knowledge through corrective feedback. I noticed while observing the lesson that several groups had made the same error and that forgotten, and may be learned to a mastery level if they had earlier been learnt to a lesser extent.

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they seemed to make sense of the teacher’s corrective intervention. 5.1.3.2 Teaching new ways of doing things There is evidence to suggest that in the schools I studied in Cameroon, research participants found correcting to be contributing to learning by making students learn new ways of performing tasks. During interviews, Carl:JBSS gave the example of an instance when, in English language, Miss JN prevented him from repeating the same mistakes he made in his essay several times over. As he put it, ‘when I was writing my last test, I wrote and I never gave any paragraph, but when I remembered what the teacher wrote on my paper last term that I should always give paragraph I had to cancel everything and start writing while putting my paragraphs’. Effectively, the language teacher’s voice seems to remind Carl of the new learning whenever he was confronted with tasks that require paragraphing. What this also teaches us is that corrective feedback could be very useful to students when, on further occasions, they are given the same or similar tasks on which feedback had been provided. It is not very obvious such feedback will maintain its strong corrective potential if students are given tasks of a radically different degree of complexity, for example. That Carl was able to learn ‘new ways of doing things’ in essay writing is certainly because when marking his essays, Miss JN put formative comments on students’ work. The learning potential of such comments is due to their ability to i) go further than simply telling students they are good or bad learners, touching more important aspects of learning; ii) draw their attention to actual or real things that can negatively affect the quality of submitted work. If Carl observes paragraphing in his subsequent writings this will show that he did learn new and better ways of approaching essay writing; iii) be accessed long after they have been provided (when scripts remain intact, not destroyed). This means students can always turn back to written comments as a reference treasury to clarify doubts and improve understanding of what was taught in class. To use Mr JA’s (PCAS) own words,‘ those written comments are very good because they remain there for a long time to serve as a reminder to the student whenever the student picks up that script to read’ 5.1.3.3 Involving students in problem-solving and learning Giving students opportunities to correct one another can also be useful for learning. Help given by a student to another may not be as rich and as

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profound in quality and quantity as that provided directly by teachers, given varying degrees of proficiency and expertise between the two groups. Nevertheless, student assistance is no less significant. Besides, teachers sometimes allow students to ‘work things out’ themselves rather than intervening all the time and this in itself makes students work actively in the problem-solving and learning processes. Consider for example, how much learning can occur through peer correction when two students get involved in an argument, with one (Clare) arguably more knowledgeable than the other. Dialogue extract 5.2, taken from a language lesson in GHS depicts this situation. Dialogue extract 5.2 from an English language lesson in GHS Context: The lesson was held in Form 4 B with 68 students in attendance. After watching a simulated interview between a Manager and a Jobseeker acted out by two of their classmates in class, students were asked to work in small groups of four and to produce a similar interview or conversation in writing. A student was appointed leader in each group to jot down ideas to be collated later and presented to the entire class. One of the students, Clare, who was the focus of my observations was taking notes for her group. She and her friends chose to write about a student who recently obtained a PhD in Europe and returned to Cameroon to look for work. Student A: (Telling Clare what to write): ‘…in Europe where I had my Ph.D…where I had my Ph.D. Clare: ‘But…’ Student A: (Presses on): ‘Write it, just write it’. ‘Is the ‘D’ in capital letter?’ All three students (In chorus): ‘Yes, that’s how they write it’ Student A: ‘Aaahhh’ [i.e. is that so?] ‘…and came back…emmm…’ Clare: ‘…and returned rather’ Student A: ‘Yeah, and returned where I worked in emmm…(runs out of idea and sighs) Clare: (Cuts in) ‘No, and returned…’ Student A: ‘Wait, wait’ Clare: ‘…to seek for a job in your firm’ Student A: ‘…a job in your firm? See emmm, this one…you have to put it under ‘Experience’ because when they say… Clare: ‘No, no, we, we are going to put errr experience where he first of all worked before coming to Cameroon’.

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Student A: ‘For ‘Qualifications’, you just have to list all your qualifications, that’s all. Under ‘Experience’, that’s where you have to explain all these other things’ Clare: ‘No, under ‘Experience’…’ Student A: Don’t say ‘I returned to seek for a job in your firm. Say, ‘I worked…’ You can say you worked…you formally… in errr in an industry in Douala’. Clare: ‘Yaaahhh!!’ [i.e. PE word used typically when an interlocutor says something too outrageous to be accepted as fact]. Student A: ‘But there emmm…’ Clare: ‘In a law firm because we are talking here…right here of a law firm not an industry’ Student A: ‘Yah…OK… ‘What are your experience?’ Clare: ‘…ces’ Student A: ‘What are your experiences? But it does not have an ‘s’. It is not in plural’ Clare: ‘It does’ Student C: ‘What are your experience?’ Clare: [‘Haah!!!’ i.e. another PE word used typically when an interlocutor says something too outrageous to be accepted as correct]. Student D: ‘What are your experiences? Yes, i korekt’ [Translatable as ‘Yes, it’s correct’] Clare: ‘I korektt. Call for her and ask her’ Students keep arguing with one another about the right formulation to adopt, some proposing alternative formulations: ‘What are your experience? What experience do you have?’ Teacher comes in and clarifies the situation, explaining why Clare is right. Further on in the conversation, an argument erupts again… Student A: ‘Say Great Britain’ ( i.e. Jobseeker’s country of provenance) Student C: ‘What Great Britain? You are only talking about Great Britain! Write Great Soppo!’ [Great Soppo is a town in Cameroon].

In the above argument over what to include in the interview, Clare’s constant interventions and objections to what Student A proposed for her

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to jot down enables the others, and especially Student A, to learn a lot from her though with some difficulty. For instance, she helped them gain new understandings on: spelling in English e.g. how to spell the word ‘Ph.D.’ (line 6); lexical meaning and distinctions e.g. the difference in meaning between ‘Experience’ and ‘Qualification’ as used in job applications, different meanings the word ‘firm’ can have depending on the context in which it is used (line 28); the need to include a plural marker ‘s’ at the end of words like ‘experiences’ when used in plural (line 34), to name but a few. All of this suggests that if students are asked to assess what their friends say and write in class and to provide corrective feedback, this will give them great responsibility in problem-solving and enable the less capable to make essential cognitive gains in the learning process. There is interview evidence to corroborate that some students learn better from their friends. Reacting to a situation where students were advised to seek help from classmates when facing difficulty in their work, Laura:GHS, said: ‘When the teacher collects books and mark, he can just write there, ‘See this person in class’. Or when you go there you have more information (…) When the teacher is speaking some students are afraid or something, but when they go to their friends they learn more than from the teachers. Typically, introverts abhor prospects of speaking in public for fear of making mistakes. While some of them take advantage of one-to-one conversational encounters with teachers to express personal concerns, others, apparently, seek solace in their classmates and friends. It is easier for students to learn from mates because they understand one another better than they understand teachers whose language they may find too complex for comfort. In the context of secondary schools in Cameroon, this is a major factor for learning because the majority of Form 4 students are not fully proficient in Standard English (SE). Not being confident of their oral expression and scared of being laughed at, they will prefer not to ask teachers questions in class and to do so in the company of mates in any other language they feel more at ease with. Having examined how ‘neutral’ feedback forms work in learning, it is now appropriate to direct attention to ‘positive’ feedback forms, beginning with approval, praise and rewards.

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5.1.4 Approval, praise and rewards: what role in classroom learning? Analysis of interview evidence from PCAS, JBSS and GHS reveal that these feedback forms promote a culture of performance and competition in school, confirm students’ understanding of concepts taught, and increase their participation in lessons. 5.1.4.1 Promoting a culture of performance In Chapter 4 (section 4.2.1.2), it was mentioned that feedback on written work consisted mainly of marks and summative remarks. I raised the issue during interviews with teachers to find out how much importance they attach to these forms of reporting. Their responses show that many of them have a performance-oriented view of learning; they believe that obtaining high scores in tests is enough indication that students are learning. This is understandable in some respects, especially because a student who, after reviewing his previous performance, works harder to improve on it certainly learns something new in the review process. Both students and teachers also think the main purpose of studying is to pass examinations. Miss EM:GHS, for instance, made the following comment about her students’ attitude after writing a test: EM: (…) I don’t joke with the fact that I know how much importance students attach to marks. They take the marks we give them in class very seriously and I treat it accordingly’. There are some students who feel very demoralised when they fail in tests. They don’t have an open mind as far as corrections are concerned. They just feel like ‘Oh! I’ve failed in the test. I’m no longer interested’ and you could give that same student that same exercise and he would perform badly…They just want to see their scripts. They are only dying for their scripts.

In corroboration, one of her students, Clare, said of her reaction after receiving written work that has been marked: ‘most of the times… all the time I take my papers I just look at the marks and I just forget about it, yes, I just keep the papers aside. I’m more interested in the marks’. This focus on success in examinations, perhaps, has its foundations more in what society demands of schools than in teachers’ ignorance of the need for students to gain mastery of what they are taught in school and not simply to excel in assessments. Mr DN:JBSS:Geo was very clear about this.

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DN: Well, the situation in which we are in, in the country now, the most important thing is passing exams errr because the country is emphasising more on getting certificates. So, during the course of study the student’s attention is geared towards getting only what can enable he or she to pass errr the exam because that is the only way errr that it can be proved that errr he or she had gone through errr that course (…).

Certainly, it is not entirely correct to assume, as Mr DN does, that only through performance in examinations can students demonstrate learning. However, he seems to be making an important point because nowadays, every Cameroonian parent will expect their child to do well in school and to get a good job on completion of studies and students’ employability depends heavily on their academic accreditations. Pressure from society means schools will lay much emphasis on their students performing well, especially in certificate examinations like the GCE for reasons of prestige, to attract Government funding, grants, and greater student intake. Under the circumstances, teachers lack professional autonomy, are constantly under pressure from superiors to make students achieve good results as proof that they are good teachers, their schools are succeeding and are meeting targets set by Government. 5.1.4.2 Promoting competition to be the best As far as teachers in PCAS and JBSS are concerned, the usefulness of marks to students’ learning is also in terms of traditional roles classroom assessments have been known to play e.g. norm-referencing. To Mr RW:PCAS, marks enable students to see their performance levels in comparison with others, then to make decisions about whether to improve next time or to maintain the same achievement level. Such comparisons are likely to create a spirit of competition in students because in a teaching - learning situation where obtaining excellent results is idealised, students who want recognition in school may want to outscore one another. Teachers also encourage competition in class through verbal praise and rewards in the form of tokens given in recognition of good work. Talking about tokens, Mr JA:PCAS explained that ‘it is a form of creating competition within students; this too will encourage the other students who are not hardworking to do something so as to earn the token the next time’. Clare:GHS interpreted the importance of complimenting students in class in the following terms: CB: {…} Let me say, if the teacher says I’ve done well in front of the others you’ll like it and you’ll fight to work harder because if next time, somebody else in the class takes your position and works harder than you, so, the

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The spirit of competition referred to above can influence student learning both positively and negatively. For the serious student, scoring lower than a classmate will be a strong source of motivation, a reason to review learning techniques and problem-solving strategies in order to do better next time. Clare presents herself as a fine example of such a student and one can sense her determination to keep on achieving in her statement above. There is a possibility, however, that students may not realise that, at times, what should count more in assessment is not where students position themselves in comparison with one another, but whether as individuals, they independently understand what they are taught and can each claim success in their learning experiences. As we have learnt from Bloom (1976), simply ranking students’ work against others’ is inappropriate for learning. That tells the student, for example, that another is better than him but does not indicate the nature of the learning difficulties he is facing that makes him of less value and what he can do about them. 5.1.4.3 Increasing participation in lessons A view obtained from teachers and students during interviews indicates that expressly accepting students’ responses, like praising them, works to arouse their interest and motivation in lessons, which translates into a desire for increased participation and engagement in discussions. This is in line with conclusions reached earlier by Flanders (1970) and Black & Wiliam (1998a), who associated praise with the development of affective attributes in learners. When reporting findings from his studies into teachers’ feedback practice in classroom interactions, Flanders remarked that ‘acceptance of responses appears to raise the amount of pupil initiations, lead to more positive pupil attitude and to greater pupil achievement’. Let us examine a student’s view of how this obtains in PCAS. The following statement was obtained from Doro:PCAS when asked how teachers’ acceptance of answers she gives in class helps her to learn: ‘I feel free and it makes me to again answer more questions and to ask questions, yes’. From an educational point of view, it is crucial to have students show such enthusiasm to contribute to lessons; it means they are interested in getting involved positively in the learning process. Therefore, ‘positive’ feedback forms work for learning indirectly by promoting positive attitudes, interest and motivation. Several studies into student

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attitude and motivation in classrooms have also reported indirect links between the two and learning (See for instance, Gardner & Lambert, 1972; Nuttin, 1980; Spolsky, 1989). Asking students to clap for another in recognition of good work was also very common practice especially in English language lessons when particular students demonstrated creativity and originality in their thinking. Clapping itself is non-verbal feedback but before students start clapping for a classmate, they are often invited to do so through spoken language, though at times, they can initiate the action without the teacher’s solicitation. Students are not indifferent to this form of praise. When asked how teachers behave towards students who impress by answering questions correctly, Clare and Laura of GHS offered these responses: CB: ‘They say, ‘Yes’, ‘Very good, clap for her’. Some teachers say ‘clap for her’ LN: ‘Well, they tell the students to clap at you and then they’ll make you to have more courage to answer more...’

The example below of how teachers invite students to participate in delivering praise has been extracted from an English language lesson conducted by Miss EM:GHS. She gave a task in which students were asked to work in groups and to write a speech between a job seeker and a manager at interview. Leaders of each group were later required to read out their work to classmates who were expected to evaluate each presentation, bringing out its strengths and weaknesses and suggesting ways in which it could be improved. Teacher: ‘Any other comment?’ Students: ‘No madam’ Ebot: ‘kok kok kok kok’ Teachers: ‘Please clap for Ebot’ (The class erupts into laughter as students clap in praise)

When students had completed their critique (perhaps because no further ideas were forthcoming), Miss EM probed to find if ‘if any other comment’ could be made and the students choral response that immediately followed shows they had exhausted their ideas. However, one student proved to have more foresight than the rest; Ebot mentioned a Pidgin English expression she heard in the presentation which Anglophone students typically use to describe the action of knocking at the door. This was to point that it was a weakness for the group concerned to have

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included this expression in a text that was supposed to be written exclusively in Standard English. That the teacher asked others to clap for Ebot means she values her contribution and admires her attentiveness and thoughtfulness. But does clapping and other forms of praise help in students’ learning? The student in question here will obviously be pleased that as a result of her thoughtfulness she was the subject of attention for a while, but if Miss EM wanted other students to learn this quality from her, it would be unreasonable to assume that she achieved her objective. Notice that she did not explain why Ebot was being clapped for. In a class of more than 60 students where most usually get excited when required to assume the teacher’s role in evaluating work (and where many profit from this rare opportunity to make noise), it is possible not everyone followed the dialogue keenly enough. Arguably therefore, many would have been unable to tell that what was being praised was the ability to distinguish between two language varieties and to know when to use one and not the other. 5.1.4.4 Confirming understanding of concepts taught During interviews one of the most frequent explanations given for overt teacher acceptance of student answers was that it confirms to students that they understood concepts taught in lessons. As Laura:GHS put it, ‘the teacher too will be very happy that this child has understood what I have taught in class’. Similarly, commenting on the usefulness of praise comments like ‘Good’ found on his English language test papers, Vally:PCAS observed that ‘it encourages me; tells me that actually I know what I’m doing in that subject’. Laura and Vally imply here that providing the right answers to questions is a measure of students’ understanding of concepts taught. This may be true but not in all cases e.g. a student may memorise and reproduce entire paragraphs of notes without having internalised their content and we cannot talk of deep understanding here. Conversely, ‘one of the hallmarks of effective learning (and of intelligent thinking) is the tendency to apply or transfer what one has learnt to novel tasks that embody similar underlying principles (Dweck, 1986:1043). The question-answer interchange below between Mr JA:PCAS:Eng and one of his students is an illustration of knowledge transfer. After having lectured on the comparison of adjectives in sentences, the teacher sought to determine whether students could make their own sentences in which they used adjectives at the ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ levels.

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Teacher: ‘Now, who is going to use the word ‘farther’ in a sentence?’ Student (Raises hand up) Teacher: ‘Yah’ Student: ‘The road going towards that way is farther than this one’ Teacher: ‘Is farther than this one. Yah, it’s correct’

To an extent, one can claim that the student did understand the lesson on how to compare adjectives and related this to a reality out of the classroom context. She was able to generate a sentence of her own (probably, not one that was discussed in a previous lesson), in which she successfully compared two things using the adjective ‘far’. The teacher’s acceptance in this case confirms to the student that she has understood this concept and can proceed with studying new ones, which is a good sign for learning. But does accepting students’ answers in class always work this way? It is difficult to answer this question in the affirmative. There is reason to believe that some particular types of acceptance may not be as helpful. It will depend, essentially, on how teachers handle question-answerfeedback episodes during lessons e.g. whether or not they ask closed or open-ended questions whose answers respectively close and open interactions between interlocutors; also, whether teachers choose to accept a given response in a way that closes the interactional sequence, thereby preventing further responses from being offered. The question Mr JA asked: ‘Who is going to use the word ‘farther’ in a sentence?’ can generate a multitude of acceptable answers from students. If a teacher accepts the first answer and does not give room for other students to express alternative opinions (as Mr JA was observed to do on this occasion), he will do justice only to the student who offered the response e.g. will confirm to him/her that the concept being tested has been understood. It is unlikely other students in class will benefit as much. Miss EM of GHS explained why accepting a response as in ‘That’s correct’ does not help learning. EM: So…errr it limits them somehow, in the sense that I… maybe after the first answer I go ahead and say, ‘It’s correct’ and maybe I end there. It’s going to limit the students because some other person could have had errr a controversial idea. And emmm, errr I, I don’t know, I wish I had a concrete example to give, but the point is if you take an answer for example, and say, ‘It’s correct’, you are closing the students’ minds. (…)

To Miss EM, accepting students’ responses categorically limits or even closes possibilities for further reflection by students on the answers given and on the tasks or questions that engendered these answers. This will be damaging particularly for students who may have divergent opinions about

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what the ‘right’ answer is, and may need explanations as to why their views are not considered. It is good practice for teachers to give room for other students to think and maybe propose other views in order to emphasise the truism that some questions have multiple answers. Accepting with finality is only meaningful in situations where factual information with only one correct answer is required. It is now appropriate to consider how rejection of student answers affects students’ learning.

5.1.5 How rejecting responses works in learning According to research informants, it informs students of the need to work hard and enables them to think over tasks set and over what they have learnt that the tasks are evaluating. 5.1.5.1 Emphasising the need for hard work Consider the discussion below with Doro:PCAS. KT: (…) wen yu gi ansa wé i nó korekt fo kweshon fo klas, weti ya ticha di du? DE: I di tel mi sé i nó korekt an a get tu sit daun a lisin fo mai fren dem (…) KT: Ok, an errr weti yu tink abaut dat bihévyio? DE: I di mek mi m’a di wok had. I min sé a di slip; a get tu wek op a wok laik de odas dem. Translation KT: (…) When you give incorrect answers to questions in class, what does your teacher do? DE: He tells me it’s not correct and I have to sit down and listen to my friends (…) KT: OK. And errr what do you think about that behaviour? DE: It makes me to work hard. It means I’m sleeping; I should wake up and work hard like others.

Doro’s first response above illustrates one way in which teachers reject the validity of inaccurate answers students give to questions in class (also see Chapter 4, section 4.2.3.3) and this particular type of refusal is, apparently, not very helpful for learning. We know that simply providing students with information (about incorrectness of responses in this case) is not strong enough to ensure concrete action is effectively taken in the interest of learning (Hattie, 2001). Follow-up action is needed on the teacher’s part that may take any of the following forms: pointing out why responses rejected are incorrect in the first instance and how students can make

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improvements; providing room for student self - assessment and retrial. We must admit, nevertheless, that when students are clear about their teachers’ feedback intention for rejecting answers (Doro’s second response above shows she is), learning may result from categorical refusal. Here, rejection indicates significant gaps in students’ understanding of tasks completed and raises their consciousness about the need to do something about it. Rejection may not be very helpful as well if it is followed by disapproving remarks, without corresponding comments explaining why they are made. In this case they do little in themselves to make students move forward and only those with a strong psychological disposition may remain motivated to work harder and improve on their work. Clare:GHS is an example of such a student. When asked how she would react to comments like ‘Bad’, ‘Very Poor’, on her written work, she maintained that ‘I’ll try to work harder next time to have a pass mark, so I won’t have that ‘Bad’ anymore’. Such a reaction is typical of high-achieving students whose commitment and belief in success is high and who may not be put off by negative remarks. This may not be the case for several low-achieving students. 5.1.5.2 Enabling reflection on tasks and performance Interview data revealed that rejecting a student’s response may not be irrelevant for cognitive purposes if it causes that student to think over the task she was set with more focus and mental penetration. There are a few students who manage to gain something when they make learning errors even when these are rejected without room given immediately for re-trial and self-correction. Once again, cognitive engagement in tasks in this case would depend on special student characteristics, some of which are exposed in Clare’s response when asked how she reacts to teachers’ remarks showing that her contributions to lessons are inappropriate. CB: I would say in this class it’s a bit difficult because students when you have the wrong answer, they laugh at you, yes, that kind of thing. But for me I, I take it normal, yes, whenever the teacher says my answer is not correct I sit down and reflect on the question again and read. And then if he asks another question I…I make sure to answer the question correctly… KT: OK CB: …I don’t give up with answering questions.

When teachers say ‘No’ to students’ answers and carry on with lessons,

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only a student who is highly determined, self-reliant and who knows what to do to right her wrongs without assistance may take personal initiative to find out what went wrong. In Clare’s case, having an answer rejected (especially a ‘high-confidence’ one) will be a moment for reflection and self-assessment, of critical thinking on the task and perhaps of further reading that might yield dividends in learning. In a nutshell, learning in the face of categorical refusal will depend on the psychological profile of the recipient of feedback. The role in learning of criticisms and allied ‘negative’ feedback forms will now be considered.

5.1.6 Criticism, warning, punishment and classroom learning These forms were seen to be useful for social learning, that is, insofar as they deter students from unacceptable conduct, enabling them to comply with school rules. 5.1.6.1 Discouraging unacceptable conduct Disruptive behaviour is a major concern for secondary teachers in Cameroon and they constantly seek ways to turn students away from it so they can use available time more meaningfully on teaching and learning activities. Criticism, warning and punishment4, for instance, are usually meant to discourage unwanted behaviours or in the context of academic work, to persuade students to put in effort and improve on the quality of what they produce. In the following statement, Mr RW:PCAS:Geo reminds us that criticism often involves some form of verbal abuse and makes reference to some teachers who, dissatisfied with their students’ results in written tasks, insult them while giving back their answer scripts in class. RW: (…) there are some of our colleagues, you know, they’ll obviously prefer to use their abusive language or abusive words and so on. You know, when you do that you scare other students and students always come and complain. We as administrators we do get some of those reports. A teacher will come and tell a student: ‘You are big enough, you cannot even 4

As mentioned in Chapter 4 (section 4.2.3.4), only three cases of corporal punishment were recorded in all the thirty lessons I observed. When I raised the issue during interviews, however, students in PCAS and GHS in particular identified their teachers with the practice and in all three schools, both students and teachers articulated a great deal on the subject. This means it is an issue of interest/concern for them and, hence, for analysis in this book as far as feedback practice is concerned.

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pass this and you are still in Form 1’. No, those are not statements you as a teacher you should do especially while distributing papers.

Students do not like being criticised, especially when this takes the form of jibes and invectives or when criticism is accompanied by punishments. To avoid these they tend to shun away from inappropriate behaviours that can attract teachers’ attention and learn to do what is expected of them. As Mr DN:JBSS:Geo corroborated, if a student ‘persists in disturbing in class, ( …) if that student is sent out, it’s very serious because he or she misses that particular class and may get the material only from the rest of the students, not directly from the teacher. So, to some of them it’s painful to miss a class. So, sometimes they take the warning that persistence in disturbance will send them out; they take it seriously, yes’. Students themselves relate the role of punishment in school life to compliance with school rules and regulations insofar as non-compliance results in further punishments. Carl:GHS remarked: ‘(…) when I’m sent out I’ll miss so many things that are going on in class, yes, and upon that again there’ll be roll call conducted in the class and you’ll not be present, so, it will lead you to another punishment and this will teach you next time to cooperate in class’. Carl believes in the strength of punishing to prevent the occurrence of repeated offences. This is because a) students miss out on lessons when sent out of class, b) registration or school attendance checks might be done in their absence and being absent from lessons leads to further punishments. As a pre-emptive action then, the student will tend to conform according to prescribed codes of conduct. From this it is clear that criticisms, warnings and punishments can be very effective in maintaining school discipline. There is evidence to suggest that while these feedback forms help some students to learn appropriate ways of behaving in school and also to improve on their academic performance, they may have negative repercussions on other students. For instance, Laura (GHS) was emphatic that they may decrease rather than increase interest and motivation to learn and to take part in class discussions. LN: ‘Some teachers will tell the students to laugh at you and then say, ‘Sit down’; just provoke you and next time you will not like to answer questions in class again’ (…) Well, if you are too hard on the child the students will not like to answer a question next time. I think you should give the child a room to try, if the tea…the child is not you tell the child that ‘OK, it is not complete’, just to…‘Check in your books’. If the teacher has taught the, the lesson in class you just check and then after reading, reading it again then

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Students will react to the same form of feedback in different ways depending on their personal characteristics. It should be recalled that Laura is a generally low-achieving student and, according to Dweck’s argument (1986, 1987), could be more amenable to demoralisation and ‘learned helplessness’ that can cause students to avoid lessons and teachers that make them unhappy. She will find it difficult to work with teachers who are ‘too hard’ on students. Typically, students in Anglophone secondary schools in Cameroon use this expression when speaking about teachers, to mean those who get heavy-handed in the types of punishments they mete out, who give very severe punishments that are often noncommensurate with the offences they are meant to sanction. ‘Negative’ feedback forms, as has been shown, may affect affective aspects like selfesteem and commitment to work. I have so far examined how some teachers and students thought different feedback forms that teachers deployed in classrooms were contributing (and not contributing) to learning. The second part of this chapter pursues the question of the feedback-learning relationship by looking more precisely at indicators of students’ learning and on what learning was attributed to. The following issues will be considered: a) whether or not the students researched were found to have learnt anything during the research period b) whether such learning as found can be described as cognitive, mastery, affective, social, deep or surface learning; (Gagné (1977), Bloom (1981) & Joyce et al (2000) provide a detailed account of these models of learning). c) the extent to which teachers’ feedback did actually help students learn cognitively.

5.2 Evidence of students’ learning ‘Are you learning? Do you understand something you didn’t understand? Can you do something you couldn’t do? Are you confident about something you were not sure of? If yes, you are learning. Well done!’. I found this visibly displayed on one of the notice boards of Longsands Community College, a comprehensive secondary school in St Neots, Cambridge, United Kingdom during an informal visit to the school. A few students I spoke to said it was put up by the head teacher for the attention

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of students and teachers. Many students can identify something they are able to comprehend and/or do that they could not at some earlier point in their learning, an indication that some learning has taken place according to the quotation above. In this section, three evidence sources will be examined: x Observational evidence in the form of dialogue extracts wherein some sort of feedback was mediated during teacher-student and studentstudent interactions in lessons; x Students’ academic performances at school represented by termly assessment results (cumulative examination and test scores) obtained in English, Geography and Chemistry; x Claims students made during interviews, being representations of what they believe to be part of their learning experiences at school. In his work, Slimani (1989) also investigated what students learned by asking them what they think they have learned. Before examining these sources of evidence per se, a few reminders bear mention: First, I did not collect samples of written work for analysis on a weekly basis to see if improvement had been made on work done earlier and assessed. I tried to but failed because some teachers did not give exercises for long periods of time; when they did, they did not mark most of the time; when they marked and returned scripts, there was usually no follow-up to check if corrections had been done before moving on to new work. Thus, it was hard to tell if progress had been made on previous work as part of formative assessment. I had no option but to rely on summative termly scores students earned per subject studied and, at times, on teachers’ subjective judgements of students’ progress. Besides, I assumed teachers knew their students better and had more regular access to their oral and written work to be able to make informed assessments about whether or not they felt students were learning. Second, I considered improvement or a positive change in the quality of students’ academic work/conduct as an indication of learning. This is because as Cullingford (1990) and Perrenoud (1998) each pointed out, it is hard to tell by mere observation whether or not students are learning in class at any one time, cognitive processes being inaccessible to the human eye. They suggest, then, that inferences can be made as to whether learning has occurred through noticeable positive changes in students’ thinking, demonstrable, for instance, via improvement in the quality of their oral and written productions. Third, success rates in school subjects

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reflected in test or examination scores is not the only and probably not the best indicator of learning. Besides, even if it were, it can still be argued that whilst improvement or increase in the quality of a student’s academic work/conduct may suggest the presence of learning, decrease or decline in the quality of such work/conduct does not necessarily imply the opposite (the absence of learning). This means factors other than feedback can cause students to improve or decline in their academic attainment. It was necessary for these reasons to obtain information on learning through the three sources of evidence mentioned earlier, for purposes of triangulation. Teachers in PCAS, JBSS and GHS are following the same syllabus, but, arguably, their students are not exposed to the same type of teaching experiences. To discuss students’ learning it is appropriate therefore to look at each school separately.

5.2.1 The situation in Private College of Arts and Science The example of Vally (VA) Dialogue extract 5.3 below is taken from a Geography lesson in PCAS and represents an attempt at scaffolded learning where interpersonal communication between Mr RW and one of the students studied, Vally (VA), enabled the more experienced adult to assist the less capable student. He was trying to evaluate Vally’s understanding of two concepts related to glaciation: ice and moving ice (or glacier), and the student’s ability to distinguish the two is taken as a measure of his understanding of the concepts at an elementary level of definition. Vally’s first response (Line 3) suggests poor understanding of what a glacier is. Certainly, ordinary water is in liquid form and cannot be anything else but water. Several feedback categories are at work in the conversation. In lines 4 and 16, the teacher accepted Vally’s response only partially and probed for more information. Probing worked for learning at these points insofar as it enabled Vally to think about the task set for a while i.e. to put his cognitive resources at work. The outcome (Line 14) shows however, that the student did not understand the lesson on glaciation when it was taught. Rejection of this response enabled him to produce another one that turned out to be the expected response (Line 16). It would be misleading to conclude at this stage that effective learning occurred due to the teacher categorically rejecting earlier responses and giving room for retrial and self-correction. It looks as if it is the loudness (and possibly menace) in the teacher’s voice (Line 15) that caused Vally to remember the phrase ‘Ice in

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motion’. That neither Vally nor anyone one else in the class could explain the formation of glacier indicates they had not understood the concept fully and may have been unwilling to admit this to the teacher. Vally appeared to have only vague and superficial conceptions about what a glacier is, ‘moving ice’, despite the teacher’s intervention with a multiplicity of feedback moves. Dialogue extract 5.3 from a Geography lesson in PCAS Context: The lesson was held in Form 4 A with 76 students in attendance. It revised the concept of Glaciation in Physical Geography that had been introduced in an earlier lesson. Mr RW picked Vally out to answer his questions that, seemingly, were meant to detremine if students had understood what a ‘glacier’ is and how it is formed. Teacher: ‘When one talks of moving ice, when one talks of ice, when one talks of glacier, I hope you understand? Who can distinguish it? Vally’ Vally: ‘Ice means water in a solid form while glacier means water in a liquid form’. Teacher: ‘Yes. No, not just water, not water. You have already touched the point but you just have to continue from there’. (Vally remains silent) Teacher: ‘Ice barely means what, water in the solid form. That’s why in our day-to-day language we always talk of what, ice blocks, isn’t it? Ehemn, that’s water existing in the solid form. But when we talk of either moving ice or glacier there is something additional. So, continue from that point because if you say water…water on motion, no, it’s quite different from…ehemn, correct yourself’. Vally: ‘Glacier means solid water in liquid form’ Teacher: ‘GLACIER MEANS WHAT?’ Vally: ‘Ice in motion’. Teacher: ‘Yes, ice, ice on what, motion or glacier means what?’ Vally: ‘Moving ice’. Teacher: ‘Moving ice. That is why I have to simplify it here. In most of our books you’ll not see there ‘moving ice’ or maybe even in the exams they’ll not use this phrase ‘moving ice’, is that right? I just wanted to display it, but most of the time we’ll use what, ‘glacier’ or they’ll always use the term ‘glaciation’, is that right?’ Students: (In unison) ‘Yes, Sir’. Teacher: ‘How is Glacier formed? Give now the formation…glacier’.

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Student (VA): ‘When the rate of condensation becomes severe, it means we have formed ice’ Teacher: ‘Errrr, there you’ve taken a short cut, ok. Take for example, if you are explaining to a Form 1 student, will that student understand that when the rate of condensation becomes severe? No.’ Vally and other students in class continue to try out other answers but fail to convince the teacher who then helps out and re-explains the process of the formation of glacier to the entire class.

Certainly, the dialogue extract represents only one opportunity for learning in Geography the student had during the course of the academic year and that he did not fully understand glaciation is by no means an indication he could not have learnt other concepts in the subject. This also applies to the other students to be discussed in this section. My analysis here cannot claim to speak for his performances in the several other lessons that were not observed. How then did he fare, generally, in his learning in Geography as far as other sources of evidence show? The graph below shows his termly results in the subject.

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Fig. 5.1 Termly results in Geography:Vally

Total termly scores on 40

30 25

25 22

20 15

16

10 5 0 Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

There was a positive change in the quality of his work, symbolised by a significant improvement in his second term performance from a belowaverage performance in the first, despite a drop in the third. When given the opportunity to talk about what he had learnt in Geography, Vally was able to articulate personal learning experiences in this way: ‘I think I've been able to adapt myself to certain structural questions which in the past they have been boring me. I would have always been preferring essay questions, but this time I have actually learnt how to answer structural questions even’. The Geography examination in GCE and pre-GCE classes in Cameroon usually requires students to respond to two broad question types: ‘essay’ and ‘structural’ questions. The latter often have multiplechoice answers and selecting the most appropriate one does not always require much cognitive effort. Since I failed to probe for more precise illustrations of the newly acquired skills, it is difficult to say here whether the positive change in his termly scores in Geography (Fig. 5.1) reflects enhancement in the quality of his thinking and learning in this subject, and not improvement in his ability to excel in ‘structural’ questions which, as we have seen, do not test analytical ability, intellectual engagement, and generally, learning at deeper level. Consider his performances in English language as shown in the graph below.

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Figure 5.2 shows he consistently dropped in his scores though obtaining a pass in all three terms. This means something went wrong to affect his performance in English. However, there was evidence he experienced learning in the subject, was aware of what concepts were taught in class and was able to articulate on some of them. VA: Well, for this present academic year I think I now have a mature brain to (…) look at a sentence or a piece of work and am able to bring out what is actually happening there, yes (…). KT: (…) what exactly errr do you mean? VA: I mean to look at a sentence and I actually know that this one is ironical or this one is a metaphor… KT: …OK VA: …yes. KT: OK. So, in order words you’ve been able to learn how errr metaphors, errr irony works, errr for instance… VA: …Yes, or stylistic devices (…)’

Total termly scores on 60

Fig. 5.2 Termly results in English:Vally

50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

44.4 38.4 30.5

Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

Recognising and identifying metaphor, simile and other tropes in writing (especially in poetry), is an academic task that requires high intellectual engagement and can lead to cognitive processing of information. Given the absence of more concrete evidence e.g. observational data showing

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how the student actually demonstrated these new understandings in his class work, it is once again only speculative to affirm that Vally did make the most of teaching in this area. When I sought to find out in interviews what he thinks contributed to the learning he claimed, Vally gave the impression it is factors other than teachers’ feedback: ‘our teachers have been there advising us on how to read our books and pass, prepare for exams and they advise us on how we are supposed to go about with our social activities (…) our teachers usually bring us past GCE questions so that we are able to adapt to the GCE questions or the GCE-types. So, I think I’ve actually learnt how to answer this style of questions’. There is visibly no mention of any feedback activity, an indication that perhaps the student was not very sensitive to teachers’ feedback or considered the other factors mentioned to be of much more significance for his learning in English language. It would be appropriate now to examine the learning experiences of Doro, the low-achieving student. The example of Doro (DE) In none of the lessons observed in PCAS did Doro actively take part in recordable discussions with teachers and friends during problem-solving sessions. I could only rely on data from interviews and termly results to give an account of her learning experiences. Though it is difficult to conceive, it is the case that Doro consistently scored zeros in Geography in the first two terms despite sitting for the examinations. All available evidence suggests that she simply paid the price for not being regularly present in lessons and not working hard enough during the course of the academic year. She left school before the end of the year and did not sit for the final examinations, so got no mark. That she could make no improvement in the quality of her work by the second term despite the low mark (negative feedback) obtained in the first suggests that such feedback was unhelpful in terms of learning in Geography. In spite of this, Doro claimed during interviews to have learnt much in the subject and went on to illustrate this. DE: (…) Las taim wé i bi tich som…a rimemba veri wel sé las taim fo Geography i bi tich somting fo taips of klaimets an a bi aks som kweshon wé i nó ansa. A bi ask i sé: ‘Yes, I know that in Cameroon we have two types of climates. But now why is it that in Yaounde we have four types of climates? Why?5 ’Só, a, a, a bi get…i bi tel mi wai wi get fo taips of 5

Here, Doro code-switched from Cameroon Pidgin English to Standard English during the interview, perhaps to emphasise that English was the language she used

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She claimed to have gained new understanding on climate change in Yaounde, capital city of Cameroon, which posed problems initially. Thanks to the teacher’s re-explanation, she was able to understand why this city has four climate types unlike other regions in the country with two, the dry and rainy seasons. In reality, Yaounde has two climate types, wet and dry like the rest of the country. Its only peculiarity is that each climatic condition repeats itself more than once and, at times, up to three times each year. Perhaps Doro obtained the wrong information from her teacher or did not understand his explanation, and hence did not learn from it. Her performance in English language is not very much different from that in Geography.

in class when asking the question. A fuller discussion on students’ use of Pidgin English in class will be given in Chapter 6.

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Total termly scores on 60

Fig. 5.3 Termly results in English:Doro

7 6

6

5 4 3 2

1.8

1 0 Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

Figure 5.3 shows the quality of Doro’s work in the first two terms as being strikingly low and far below average. In spite of the little improvement made in the second term, her performance is still substandard and cannot earn her a pass in the subject. Here is how she talked about learning experiences in English. DE: Yes, fo English language a nó bi ondastan wot min bai ‘ondastan an respon’, a nó bi ondastan, yes, bet nau a don pik op. (…) de don tich wi insaid klas ‘ondastan an respon’. Só na de ting dat wé i bi di ova ki wi fo English language bicos a nó bi nó. De sé ‘ondastan an respon’, a n bi ondastan am, yes. Translation DE: Yes, in English language I did not understand what ‘Understanding and Response’6 means. I did not understand, yes, but now I’ve picked up. (…) we’ve been taught in class what ‘Understanding and Response’ means which is what was giving me a lot of problems in English language because I did not know about it. I did not understand when teachers talked of ‘Understanding and Response’, yes.

6

This is a newly introduced concept in the English language syllabus at secondary level in Cameroon. ‘Understanding and Response’ is a task type that was, hitherto, termed ‘Reading Comprehension’.

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Before her present class Doro knew not what the task entailed and faced severe difficulties doing such exercises. Despite present claims to mastery learning in the area, there is evidence she was unable to perform this activity when asked to as evidenced in a sample of her written work below. She was asked to read and respond to a job advert advertising the position of Clerical Staff and was given guidelines (7 points) to choose from and beef up her arguments. Some of these points reflect the professional profile of the position applied for. Doro demonstrated lack of understanding of what the task demanded; her work shows she simply copied out, re-listing in the process, all the seven points in the second part of her job application write-up without picking out what is relevant to the post of Clerical Staff. It is no surprise she could only score a zero on 20 in the exercise (see a sample of her written work in section 4.2.1.2). Assuming that Doro would have at least learnt something in English at some point in her studies during the academic year despite her poor results in assessments, I enquired to know what could have accounted for this. As was noticed in Vally’s case, Doro attributed success in learning to factors external to, and independent of, teachers’ feedback: ‘Weti dong kontribyut fo mek mi mek a len na bicos a di aks kweshons an i di ansa mi só dat a di get aidies dem, yes. A di nó wich wé fo fólló am’. In English, this should read as ‘What has contributed in making me learn is because I ask questions and I’m given responses so I have ideas, yes. I know which way to take in my studies; I know the right direction to take’. Achievement in learning was attributed, first of all, to her personal effort in taking initiatives to ask questions about what she does not know, next, to her teachers’ willingness to answer them and to clarify her doubts. No mention of any feedback activity again suggests that students are more aware of other factors as being salient for their learning. Learning as experienced by students in JBSS will be the next focus of discussion.

5.2.2 The situation in John the Baptist Secondary School The example of Henry (HF) Dialogue extract 5.4 was taken from an English language lesson in JBSS. The discussion involves Miss JN and some of her students, including the two studied for the purpose of the research reported in this book: Henry and Carl. The lesson objective, apparently, was not only to enable students to interpret mathematically coded graphical data and represent them in sentences, but also to enable them to i) construct simple sentences with

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only one clause, ii) use a given word or group of words to form sentences; iii) do this in a spontaneous manner, iv) express an idea in different ways in sentences to avoid repetition. From Line 3, Miss JN realised Student A was going off track and quickly tried to bring her to the right direction by rejecting her answer, pointing out the error in it and showing her an example of what was expected of her and all the other students. We notice in line 10 that the corrective feedback here does not seem to have worked for learning. The student probably did not understand either the feedback intention or the basis on which she was interrupted, so preferred to remain silent. The poor quality of the explanation Miss JN gave in lines 3-7 (it lacks clarity) could have directly affected the way Student A interpreted what she meant. This is an example of poor handling of learning-oriented feedback. Dialogue extract 5.4 from an English language lesson in JBSS

Context: The lesson was held in Class 4 A with 60 students participating. Students were variously and individually asked to read out their answers to a task they had completed in class before submitting their work to the teacher. The task involved interpreting graphical data from different countries on the number of people working at a given age and students were asked to represent the information in sentences. Miss JN designated one student, Student A, by a show of the hand to read out the first sentence she had written. Student A: ‘We have Tanzania with 80 % followed by Brazil with 50 %… and the next is Chile…’ Teacher: ‘Is that one sentence? Do you know how to make single sentences?’ ‘The next country is Tanzania with 80 %’. Can we have the next country and its own participle still in a sentence, not a follow-up? We know that the idea is just following up logically but let’s have sentences representing each country with its own percentage. Teacher: ‘ So, the next one should be which country?’ (Student A remains silent) Teacher: ‘Is it to construct the sentences that is your problem? Yes, the next country is which one? Let’s have a sentence representing the next country. Yes’ Student B: (Says something not audible enough to be picked up by the tape recorder)

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Teacher: ‘Is Russia coming after Tanzania in percentage? Is it errr errr Russia? Is it Russia? No’ Students: (Simultaneously & in chorus): ‘No’ Teacher: ‘Before Russia, which is the next highest after Tanzania?’ Students: (In chorus): ‘Brazil’ Teacher: ‘OK. Let’s represent Brazil with a sentence.’ (Students remain silent) Teacher: ‘Quickly. Do a sentence with errr Brazil. You.’ (Pointing at Student B) Student B: ‘Brazil has 38 over 100’. Teacher: ‘Yes, her own sentence is Brazil comes next or Brazil has…or what is it…about errr between 30 to 40 percentage. Let’s say 38 %. Yes, the next country is what? Let’s have you.’ (Pointing at Henry) Henry: ‘According to the bar chart, the next country is Chile with Turkey. Teacher: ‘Yes, errr Chile comes next. Vary the sentences. Don’t just make it monotonous. Errr Mozambique is the first, Tanzania is the second, errr Brazil comes next. Vary the sentences. The next country is which one? Carl’. Carl: ‘After Chile…’ Teacher: ‘We’ve just had Brazil before Chile. After Brazil Chile comes next with how many percentage? Carl: ‘30 %’ Teacher: ‘30 %, yes. Which is the next country? Carl. sit down. So, if you have just been listing you’ll not earn marks’. Student E: ‘Argentina has the percentage of…the percentage of between Chile and…’ Teacher: ‘Argentina is the next country with a percentage of…it has a percentage of 20 people working at thatage. The next one, which is the last, is which one?’ Student F: ‘Russia is the last country followed by Argentina with 10 % of people…’ Teacher: ‘Russia comes or Russia follows Argentina with 10 percentage.’ There is evidence that Miss JN is knowledgeable of what she wants to say to the children but has difficulty conveying her message, perhaps because of the large audience she was dealing with. Despite all her explanation and the interventions from students A and B, Henry’s own sentence (line 27) still does not meet all of the teachers’ criteria. For instance, though it is simple in structure, is varied to an extent from preceding ones others made, it mentions two countries’ data (Chile and Turkey). It also repeated

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the phrase ‘the next country is’, which Miss JN found monotonous and called for more variation. Line 32 is equally of interest because this is where Carl was called up to intervene. His response is rejected long before completion and there are reasons to believe he may have been unfairly treated by the teacher: He was probably on the right track in his answer because Mozambique, Tanzania, Brazil, Chile had all been mentioned earlier in this order. Carl was certainly going to mention the next one after Chile had he not been interrupted. Again, the teacher did not give him another chance to learn from corrective feedback and try another sentence but moved on to someone else. Her constant interruption was disruptive interactionally and seemed to be making the students all the more confused. Notice that, finally, despite all explanations and feedback provided up to this point, the last two students called up (Students E & F) could still not live up to expectation and had to be corrected again. This means most of them did not understand what exactly they were expected to do. An implication to be drawn from the above is that some secondary teachers in Cameroon need training in communication procedures and in how to manage interactions in large classes. Without such training they are likely to misuse opportunities that can otherwise be taken advantage of in view of learning through corrective feedback and, indeed, other helpful feedback forms. Data on termly subject performance suggest that Henry did make learning gains in English, as shown on the graph below.

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Total termly scores on 100

Fig. 5.4 Termly results in English:Henry

69 68 67

67.75

66 65 64 63

65 63.5

62 61 Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

He obtained a good pass in all three terms, each time making a slight improvement on the score obtained the preceding term and thereby showing there was a positive change in the quality of his work. During interviews Henry attributed success in English to his personal attributes: his devotion to studies, attention in lessons and ability to take to teachers’ instructions and do assignments as required. He also believes Miss JN, the English language teacher helped to make his work better in the following ways: by being approachable and willing to help when students face difficulty in their work e.g. when Henry requested help with writing a report in English, Miss JN told him the format to follow, making it easier for him to proceed. This positive outlook did not appear in Geography. There was a significant decline in Henry’s performances after the first term that, amongst other things, signifies a decline in the quality of work he produced after this period and the fact that he failed to act on the negative feedback (poor marks) to improve on his learning subsequently.

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Total termly scores on 100

Fig. 5.5 Termly results in Geography:Henry

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

82.5

42.4

Term 1

Term 2

40

Term 3

Terms in academic year During interviews Henry talked about personal experience of learning in Physical Geography and revealed that he learnt ‘about the weather, glaciers and volcanicity’. Disappointingly, he did not articulate much on this, hence, did not mention particular issues he learnt under these topics e.g. different temperature changes, their causes and manifestations, what volcanoes and glaciers are, how or where they are formed, what causes them and their effects on the communities where they occur. There was no additional evidence to suggest that he did master the concepts at a deep level. It would have been more helpful if I had probed him to say more. How did his low-achieving classmate, Carl, experience learning according to data collected? The next section will attempt to answer this question. The example of Carl (CM) I made reference to Carl when analysing observational data from Dialogue extract 5.4 above to suggest that due to lack of clarity in his teacher’s explanations, he may not be making full benefit of learning opportunities in English involving feedback provision.

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Total termly scores on 100

Fig. 5.6 Termly results in English: Carl

60 50

50 44.75

40

40

30 20 10 0 Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year Results he obtained in the subject (Fig. 5.6) indicate that he is generally a below-average student who failed to make much improvement during the academic year. By the second term, he made slight progress on the quality of his work but could not sustain this long enough, so he had to drop to the below-average position he occupied previously. Even when interviewed, Carl did not provide sufficient evidence to suggest any mastery of concepts he had been taught in English. He said: ‘In English language I learnt that it is important to always read books and before going for the GCE exam, we are supposed to be prepared like this and like that’..

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Fig. 5.7 Termly results in Geography: Carl

Total termly scores on 100

80 70

72.5

60 50 40 30 20

19.2

16

10 0 Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

Certainly, it is crucial for a student to know how much contribution reading books can make to his learning, as much as which examinationpreparation techniques bear more fruit. These constitute aspects of learning in their own right but do not include specific aspects of subjects he studied at school that reading can help him understand. Carl’s situation of learning in Geography was not any better than in English. He experienced the same difficulties as Henry during the later part of the academic year, scoring well in the first term and dropping consistently in the second and third terms. What enabled him then to make his work better in the subject as he claimed in interviews? In response to this question, he referred to his subject teacher’s efforts. CM: He usually lectures in class but he does not give notes, so he’ll tell us to go in our textbook and to summarise our note from there. He usually gives us assignments to solve. KT: And how do think those assignments have helped you to make your work better? CM: For example, he told us (…) that we should solve all the problem that were in our book because in the exam (…) he is going to bring the same question but in a different way. So, during the exam he brought the question but in a different way and I think a question he gave in class made me to understand very well and I wrote the other question very well.

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Carl made no mention of teachers’ feedback endeavours even though discussion on assignments may well have led to the mentioning of marking and feedback provision. It is intriguing to note the student’s perception of how he benefits from being asked to do exercises at home. He is not concerned with understanding concepts treated in class and exploited through these exercises, but with memorising questions and their responses hoping such questions will feature in forthcoming examinations thereby facilitating the task of answering them. To be considered finally are the learning experiences of students studied in GHS.

5.2.3 The situation in Government High School The example of Clare (CB) Dialogue extract 5.5 reports interactions between a small group of students involved in collaborative learning with one another in an English language lesson in GHS. Clare and Laura are part of the group where learning takes place with the assistance of peer correction and feedback. In lines 1 and 3, both Laura and Student B provided corrective feedback to the ‘Jobseeker’ after finding his conduct not befitting, that is, getting into a prospective employer’s office without knocking. In the process of correcting they mixed up words in SE and PE without realising they were doing so. In line 4, another student in the group, Clare, took her turn to correct her friends, Laura and Student B. Dialogue extract 5.5 from an English language lesson in GHS Context: The lesson was held in Class 4 B with 68 students in attendance. It was concerned with teaching students how to write a conversation between two people after they had listened to one in which two students role-played a Manager and a Jobseeker in an interview situation. The teacher called for volunteers to role-play. Two students, male and female, opted to give a performance and the others were asked to listen and make comments at the end. Three students sitting together quite close to the role-players and forming part of the audience preferred to make comments while the simulated interview was in progress. Two of the students, Laura and Clare were the focus of observation and Laura began the conversation by reminding the Jobseeker he has to knock at the door before going into the Manager’s office.

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Laura: ‘A ‘kok’…no, he has to ‘kok kok’ [i.e. PE for ‘knocking at the door’] Student B: ‘You have…you have…you have to ‘kok kok’. Clare: ‘He has to knock’ Laura: ‘You have to knock’. Student B: ‘You have to knock’. Clare: (Addresses student in role play): ‘Kuku knock, knock first before you go and sit down’. Teacher: ‘Please don’t distract them. Leave them alone’. Clare: ‘Eti’s the Manager’. Laura: ‘Nó, man get fo bi na Manéja’ [translatable as ‘A Manager is supposed to be a man’]. All three students: (Variously call for teacher’s attention): ‘Madam, can Eti be the Manager?’ Student D: ‘Anybody…’ Teacher: ‘Anybody can be’ Clare: (Laughs, then…): ‘Aha!’The entire class bursts into laughter as the two students involved in role play each now wants to be the Manager. (The simulated interview is once again in progress). Manager ‘What are your qualifications?’ Jobseeker ‘Well, I’m in…’ Laura: ‘Tok na ya ‘O’ Levels…’ [Translatable as ‘Mention your Ordinary level certificate’] Jobseeker: ‘I have but my Ordinary Level, Advanced Level’. Manager: ‘Have you had any work?’ Jobseeker: No. Manager: ‘Have you had any experiences?’ Jobseeker: Silent Laura: ‘Tok sé yes, fo BICEC [Translatable as ‘Say yes, I work in BICEC’ i.e. a commercial bank in Cameroon]. Manager: ‘What are your marital status? Are you married or single? Jobseeker: I have six…I have girl…No…

This corrective feedback was successful and was taken up and acted upon. Remedial action followed as both students immediately engaged in autoregulation, proof that they learnt from the correction and feedback. In line 11, Laura tried to resist Clare’s second attempt at correcting her erroneous thinking that Managers can only be men. She disagreed with Clare’s

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reasoning that women e.g. Eti who is role-playing, can also be and it required the teacher’s intervention for learning to get through. Apparently, this intervention worked for everyone – the entire class, including the two students involved in the role-play now understood there are no gender limitations to being a manager. This is learning in the form of acquisition of new understandings and we have seen how both the students’ and the teacher’s corrective feedback contributed towards this. In the dialogue extract, Clare appears to be the most capable student, scaffolding the other ones into learning in English. There is a possibility her language teacher’s feedback practice could have contributed to her superior proficiency in the subject compared to others. For instance, during lessons I observed that she was quick to call for Miss EM’s attention whenever she faced difficulties solving tasks, which she always obtained. Many of her classmates did not enjoy this privilege. At interview, she also attributed her learning in English to Miss EM’s classroom practices: she lectures and explains concepts clearly, tests students comprehension of concepts through written exercises but also through oral questions that compel them to read their books before coming to class in preparation to answer the questions. The scores Clare obtained in English (Fig. 5.8) show that despite the drop in her third term’s score, her performance in the subject is satisfactory and she always succeeded in scoring a pass. Actually, interviews with Miss EM revealed that Clare’s unconvincing performance in Term 3 was much the result of her own inadequacies as those of some school administrators who collated students’ results before filling them out in report slips. Here is what she said: EM: (…) Errr, actually, you see, there are three of us teaching the sections (…) each teacher taking one section. But she had a problem; she performed poorly in another section and that’s what brought down her average. Errr besides, it was like errr there were many more errr assignments given (…) errr a little bit more demanding. I guess that’s why she had that drop. Errr there’s another reason for the drop; my own marks are not included in these marks…this mark for the term. So, she had the two sections for the other teachers. I guess that maybe if her mark for my own section were there, she would have had a better performance than this one.

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Total termly scores on 20

Fig. 5.8 Termly results in English: Clare

14 12

12.3

12.8 10.5

10 8 6 4 2 0 Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

From this we can infer that the score Clare obtained in the third term was not an accurate reflection of her proficiency level in English at the time. Let us now consider the results she obtained in Chemistry during the academic year.

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Total termly scores on 20

Fig. 5.9 Termly results in Chemistry: Clare

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

18 14 10

Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

Though scoring a pass in all three terms, Fig. 5.9 shows a consistent decline in the quality of Clare’s work after the first term which, amongst other things, suggests she made fewer learning gains in Chemistry after the second term. This is even reflected in the way she talked about her learning experiences: ‘In Chemistry, transition metals and alkaline earth metals and some other things’. These are examples of isolated concepts treated in class. It is easy to remember one has been taught the properties of transition metals, for instance, but less easy to demonstrate this learning. Since no details are given of more detailed issues learnt under the topics she mentions, Clare cannot claim deep learning under these circumstances. There is strong evidence suggesting that Clare’s inadequate third term performance in Chemistry also seems to be the result of factors external to her, but dependent on her teacher. In a statement accounting for the decline in the quality of her work, she said: ‘For the third term results, the 10, yes… it was a provincial exam we wrote and the teacher wasn't really teaching at all throughout the year, so we had done nothing in Chemistry as far as the Form 4 syllabus was concerned. So, they brought us some strange things that we never saw…we had not done many of the things, ehemn.7 Laura, the low-achieving student in GHS will be the focus 7

Clare and Laura both insisted during interviews that Mr WL, the Chemistry teacher, did not do much to help make their work and learning better in the course

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of the last case study in this section. The example of Laura (LN) Laura, constantly being corrected in dialogue extract 5.5 above, gives the impression that her mastery of English is very minimal. Rated overall a low-achiever by her teachers, she was observed to be making an effort to occupy a more comfortable position in their rankings. Her results in English language (Fig. 5.10) place her under the cutting mark of 10.

Total termly scores on 20

Fig. 5.10 Termly results in English: Laura

11 10.6

10.5 10 9.5 9

9.4 9

8.5 8

Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

There is inconsistency in her performance in English, a score of below average in the first term, a slight improvement in the second term and a drop again in the third. That she keeps hovering around the borderline without making meaningful progress suggests the feedback she got in the of the academic year. They were particularly concerned by the fact that he did not complete the Chemistry syllabus for Form 4 while at the same time expecting them to answer questions in the Common Promotion Examination on aspects he had not yet treated in class. This examination has a more comprehensive outlook and takes all aspects of the syllabus into account. Laura claimed it was mainly for this reason that her parents employed a home tutor to provide her with extra support and save her the likely embarrassment of being asked to answer questions on issues she is unfamiliar with.

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first two terms (inadequate marks) did not help her very much to make her work and learning better. It is more likely that by the end of the year, she had many more problems in this subject than she acknowledged in her account of her learning experiences: LN: (…) I learnt how to write a speech because I had never done that and how to write an application. Then in Chemistry you also learnt how to balance equations because I did not know it well in Form 2 which was taught there and then the signs that when you write equa…an equation you, you put (… ) if it is solid or it is aqueous, I always write it and I don’t put that, so I’ve learnt more about that.

Laura claimed to have gained new understanding on how to write a speech and an application. Without further illustrations, it would be inappropriate to conclude that her statement is anything else but an assertion. If she gained new understanding, it is certainly in Chemistry where she was able to make reference to more concrete aspects of her learning. For example, her statement above shows how sensitive she has now become of the need, when balancing chemical equations, to represent the natural state of any substance forming part of a chemical reaction by signs or symbols, usually in brackets. A chemical substance that is solid will be followed by an (s) for instance, one that is gas will be followed by (g) and one that is aqueous will be followed by (aq). This is knowledge she did not possess in preceding classes. Laura’s results in Chemistry (Fig. 5.11) also indicate improvement in the quality of her work by the end of the academic year. Having declined in her score in the second term, she made a fantastic comeback in the third. During interviews, Laura attributed her later success to hard work on her part: ‘I know that the marks I really deserve it because I worked hard’, and illustrated further that she put in effort to read her textbooks, not limiting herself to teachers’ notes as she did in the first two terms. She also felt extra tutorial home assistance (involving advice on what and how to prepare for examinations in the final term), had an impact on her results: ‘I had a home teacher; the teacher told us that since we are going for a provincial exam we have to read everything’. What is of interest is that Laura’s Chemistry teacher did not seem convinced that her improved performance might reflect enhancement in the quality of her work or additional learning in the subject. Mr WL had this to say: ‘Her performance in the third term also surprises me based on the fact that it was alleged that the exams was leaked, that some of them had the questions beforehand’. This is thought-provoking and casts a shadow of

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doubt on the validity of Laura’s claims to learning in Chemistry and of the high marks she obtained in support of this.

Total termly scores on 20

Fig. 5.11 Termly results in Chemistry: Laura

20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

17.6

10 5

Term 1

Term 2

Term 3

Terms in academic year

By and large, the six case studies revealed that teachers’ feedback, most of the time, did not contribute to students’ learning except in a few instances. This, perhaps, explains the noticeable paucity in students’ discourse of the contribution of feedback to learning, and of issues related to cognitive engagement and mastery learning. When evidence of learning was noticed, it related more to traits of surface learning and was more the result of other factors in the teaching process. As Fig. 5.12 below shows, five out of six students attributed success in learning to teachers’ assistance that took different forms, three students included their personal effort, one student mentioned extra home support, but none referred to feedback-related assistance.

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Fig. 5.12 Attributions of success in learning (N=6)

Degree of attribution (%)

83

50

Attribute

17 0 Personal effort

Private tutor Teacher (other)

Teacher (feedback

5.4 Conclusion This chapter examined the relationship between feedback and learning in three secondary schools in Cameroon. Analysis of informants’ interview accounts and of observational data showed that the positive’, ‘negative’ and ‘neutral’ feedback forms teachers were observed to be deploying in their lessons affect students’ learning in different ways. This chapter also looked at more precise indicators of learning as observed in some lessons, in students’ cumulative test and examination results, in their claims to learning and how these were substantiated during interviews. A key finding that emerged was that even learning-oriented feedback forms like corrective feedback will lose their corrective potential and make uptake difficult, if not well construed and delivered. The next chapter recognises that for feedback to be effective it should be well presented and must be taken up by those for whom it is intended; it explores aspects of the teaching-learning context of secondary schools in Cameroon that affect feedback provision and uptake.

CHAPTER SIX CONTEXTUAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE FEEDBACK FOR LEARNING RELATIONSHIP

6.0 Introduction We saw in the previous chapter that even when the teachers I studied made effort to deploy learning-focussed forms of feedback, some of it was of low effectiveness because it failed to serve its intended purposes as it was not picked up by students. This means the presence of feedback in teaching is not enough to guarantee learning and this chapter looks at possible reasons why this is so. The main argument I make is that several aspects of the socio-cultural context of classrooms in Cameroon work as barriers to effective feedback provision and uptake. From a socio-cultural theoretical standpoint, feedback and context are inseparable (feedback is embedded in context and context in feedback). Contextual factors work together to create and mediate feedback and to determine its success at the level of delivery and reception. I draw on interview, observational and documentary evidence to discuss these issues in two sections. Section 6.1 examines those constraining aspects of the teaching-learning situation in Cameroon that impact on feedback provision and section 6.2, those that impact on uptake.

6.1 Conditions for optimal teacher feedback provision 6.1.1 Government/schools’ official policy on assessment & reporting The availability of reference documents for teachers to consult and use greatly enhances classroom teaching. Therefore, the provision by MINEDUC of statutory guidelines on assessment and reporting will be important for successful feedback practice. The Cameroon Government

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through MINEDUC (French acronym for Ministère de l’Education Nationale or Ministry of National Education) legislates on all aspects of teachers’ work including modalities for assessment and feedback and makes this legislation available to all schools. For the purpose of the research reported in this book I collected a sample of the Government policy from one of the schools (PCAS). The content of the document is the product of consultation between the Minister of National Education, his advisers on academic affairs, national as well as provincial pedagogic inspectors of education. Its principles are expected to be implemented by satellite provincial departments of Education, school heads, their immediate collaborators and of course, teachers themselves. During visits to schools, I noticed inadequacies in Government policy on assessment which could be acting as an impediment to effective feedback practice in classrooms. These shortcomings relate to the content of the document and how it is disseminated. Each of these areas of weakness will be examined separately. The content of the document It is a ministerial decree issued prior to the academic year when I conducted fieldwork. Like most policy documents, it is generalised, addresses several issues and treats none of them in depth. It covers five main issues including the partition of the academic year, organisation of the teaching calendar, assessment and reporting timetables and modalities, calendar of national education-related festivities and holidays. On assessment and feedback which is of interest to this book, it addresses the following issues: types of assessments to be conducted in schools under the supervision of school management; number of periodic monthly and end-of-year examinations; periods when reporting of students’ work is to be done via official progress reports and the ‘carnet de correspondance’ (that is, report booklets similar to ‘Daily Programmers’ and ‘Homework Diaries’ in UK secondary schools); modalities for filling out marks in booklets: who to fill out marks in booklets and who to calculate averages and hand out reports to students and parents. The documents also focuses on end-of-term Class Council meetings where statistics of results per subject and general class averages are deliberated, amongst other things; it also mentions the period allocated for end-of-year mock examinations for final-year classes. The main problem with this document is that since it attempts to cover several issues, some of which are unrelated to assessment and reporting,

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none of them is covered in a focused manner. For instance, we are told in Article 22 that a good number of senior civil servants e.g. national, provincial and divisional inspectors of education, directors of central services, heads of nursery, primary and post-primary education, directors of government teacher training colleges are each in their various capacities, charged with implementation of the decree. This does not specify whose task it is to develop these issues and make them more operational in classrooms. It is not obvious that teachers, trained and untrained, will interpret and understand the document in the same way especially as it is written entirely in French which many English-speaking teachers in Cameroon lack competence in. Another fall out is the notable absence of information on formative-type assessments like quizzes, exercises, homework, assignments, and the relevance of systematic feedback to be generated from these. An assessment and feedback policy in its own right would, perhaps, assist teachers more in the feedback provision exercise as it may address many more issues and could make clear how these are going to be elaborated and simplified for use by classroom practitioners. Without this, much effort may be expended in providing feedback in a manner that is not useful for students’ learning. The dissemination of the document’s content is also a cause for concern. Dissemination of statutory legislation on assessment and feedback Diffusion and implementation of state policy is not properly done. Of the three schools visited, none could produce reference documentation with guidelines drafted either by local education authorities or by the school management itself on how to operationalise MINEDUC’s prescriptions. Moreover, only in PCAS was I able to obtain a copy of the current Government policy document. Schools heads in the other schools complained of not having updated ones and could not remember when they last received official copies either from MINEDUC or from DELEDUC. This suggests that: x Not all schools receive Government legislation on a regular basis to ensure harmonisation of feedback practice across schools; x Perhaps, school heads who receive them do not all always share their contents with teachers but preserve them in administrative units, so not all practitioners have access to information guiding practice in this area;

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x Some schools do not even have internal guidelines on assessment and feedback; x Perhaps assessment and feedback-related issues are not accorded high value within some institutions. This is not healthy for learning and should raise serious questions about the commitment of MINEDUC, its satellite departments and inspectors of education and indeed, individual schools to help students learn though assessment. Classroom practitioners need to have clear ideas not only about when evaluation is to be conducted, but, crucially, how it should be conducted, how resultant feedback should be organised and diffused, and how follow-up can be done to ensure students are making full benefit of learning opportunities they so badly deserve. If an educational system does not make these available to teachers, it fails to create feedback and reduces teachers’ potential to provide it effectively. My research also found important problems in the area of teacher training likely to serve as a counter to successful feedback practice. Arguably, rules on assessment would be meaningless if teachers are not well trained to understand what they mean and how they can serve learning.

6.1.2 Previous professional training and experience For teachers to be successful in providing feedback in any subject, they need to have professional knowledge about teaching (what Brown & McIntyre, 1993 refer to as ‘teachers’ craft knowledge’), professional training as well as experiential knowledge gained in the field. Conversely, deficiencies in the above can impinge on their feedback practice. Lewin & Stuart (2003:693) made the following statement about teacher education in African societies: ‘Almost invariably, teachers have to be qualified before their first employment. Elsewhere teachers often begin working in classrooms with no training and gain initial qualifications much later, if at all. By default it is a policy and practice in most African systems’. Feedback will not exist and/or may not be properly managed in class if a given society (as part of a culture of complacency, perhaps) does not give enough attention to the training of teachers whose task it is to provide it. In the secondary schools I studied in Cameroon, I noticed during interviews that only two of the six teachers (Miss EM & Miss JN) had obtained formal teacher education from an approved institution. The other four got into teaching immediately after obtaining their Bachelors degrees in their various subject areas. Without (adequate) training teachers tend to

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‘rely heavily on what they learn from their experience, private trial and error’ (Hargreaves, 1996:4), and are less sensitive to instances of poor teaching in their lessons. Take for instance, the case of Mr JA:PCAS who did not recognise the harm he could have done to students’ learning when he asked them to kneel down in front of the class for up to 30 minutes while lessons were in progress. There is also the example of Mr DN:JBSS who did not mark some of the exercises his students did before introducing new work. Had these two teachers obtained pre-service education, it would certainly have emphasised the necessity to assess and comment on all work students complete as part of academic tasks, as well as other more productive ways of coping with disruptive behaviour in class. That teachers who get training in appropriate methods of giving feedback could be more efficient in classrooms is buttressed by the way those who had had such training could easily identify and talk about its benefits. This is how Miss EM, for instance, explained useful principles she acquired during training. EM: Oh, we learnt that emmm (… ) that students must be assessed and then you try as much as possible to provide feedback in good time, and that (…) feedback should have errr) a kind of washback effect. You don’t just assess students and leave it at that. What came out of the assessment you made-if they did a test, now you have to get…to follow-up. If they did this what questions did they have? What areas did they have problems and how are you going to try to see what to do before the next test as far that section is concerned?

According to this interviewee, the following facts were emphasised by pre-service education she obtained: x After students have been assessed, feedback should be provided promptly, not delayed, allowing sufficient time for students to make use of it; x Feedback information should have a ‘backwash effect’, i.e. should be able to inform subsequent teaching decisions e.g. based on students’ performance, teachers can re-emphasise or review concepts previously taught. In a rather lengthy quote, Miss JN also explained how pre-service training later helped her in the task of feedback provision in class. JN: The training really helps a lot because…not only in College, even in the field. As I have come into the field I have learnt more even to that errr

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What Miss JN claims to have learnt in relation to assessment and feedback can be summarised in four points: x Teachers should not rely on corporal punishment all the time when sanctioning students who get answers wrong; x When students underperform in a task they should use the opportunity to reflect on their teaching, question the underperformance and look for remedial solutions; x Teachers should always check and do corrections on work previously done before moving on to new subject matter; x When doing corrections after a task has been done they should explain why some students’ answers are considered more appropriate than others. In a sense, this can be seen as a call by training institutions for a change and an abandonment of old ways of doing things; a call for a new beginning, an ideological transformation on issues of assessment and feedback which should, in turn, be reflected in teachers’ classroom practice. Miss JN’s statement above suggests she is one of those teachers who appear to have heard the call and who believe is the right one. Whether she heeds it is certainly a different matter. It is true that theoretical knowledge gained during training, at times, does not reflect its practical application in class and that teachers’ intentions, no matter how well meant they may be, are not always translated into effective practice. Miss EM and Miss JN were not observed in their lessons to be applying all they claimed to have learnt at school all the time, but did do so some of the

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time. We saw in Chapter 4 (section 4.2.2) that neither of them was observed to be punishing students physically; both were found to be making an effort to do corrections in class on exercises students had completed (section 4.2.3.6); Miss EM in particular promoted dialogic communication and joint negotiation of feedback during lessons more than any other teacher (section 4.2.3.5). That classroom practice does not always reflect theoretical teaching is due partly to the difficult conditions under which teachers work. The next section looks at some of these working conditions.

6.1.3 Unsuitable working conditions Heavy workloads and tight timescales Good working conditions could encourage effective feedback practice because teaching of whatever sort cannot succeed if it occurs in very difficult material conditions.1 This section examines unfavourable working conditions that make it difficult for the teachers I studied to provide feedback satisfactorily. The first of these is heavy workloads that, coupled with tight work timescales, large student numbers and increased pressure from school administration, make it impossible for them to provide feedback when it is needed. Even a trained teacher like Miss EM:GHS, under the circumstances, was tempted to believe that knowledge gained through pre-service training may have no place in actual classrooms after all, as if in contradiction to what she said earlier. Her first account in Table 6.2 below reveals what she said about the shortcomings of the pre-service training she had.

1

Campbell et al (1991) interviewed 95 primary teachers in England and Wales on their ‘perceptions of, and feelings about, the impact of the Education Reform Act 1988, particularly the National Curriculum and Assessment, upon their working lives’. One of the findings they report is that teachers overwhelmingly said the two brought about increases in workload and other unbearable material conditions. Some of these affect teaching generally and feedback practice in particular e.g. increases in workload were found to reduce the amount of time spent on teaching and, by extension, the quality of teaching because teachers rush over seatwork, assessment and marking exercises, in order to accommodate many more activities within one lesson.

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Table 6.2 Teachers’ opinions on the unsuitability of working conditions for feedback purposes School

PCAS

Teacher

RW

Object of concern

Time constraints Heavy workloads Large student numbers

Comment RW: ‘(…) what I do for the moment is that I do group the students whenever I’m sharing their papers. Now, I’ll always group some of those comments, now I do them now orally’ KT: ‘Orally’ RW: ‘Take for example, I’ll say, ‘Most of you, you found it difficult to give the right spellings of geographical terms’. Now, with that I do assume that when they go back to their papers they already know that ‘Well, we…I was a victim of that’, you see, rather than going to each paper and always giving the comments. At times you might be tempted now to give…maybe write down more than even five comments: ‘wrong spelling’, ‘unsatisfactory’, you know all those type of things, ‘insufficient materials’ and so on. It’d take…maybe even you… it’d take you a long time and taking into consideration too, our programme here, our programme schedule here in school; we always write our exams the…just the second week to the end of the term. You see, it becomes strenuous; you are to see how you’ll go through the marking, you see, then compilation, then you are to fill the report cards and so. You have just very few days, so if you go down and start making those comments it’ll even waste maybe a lot of time for you’.

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JBSS

DN

Termly reports

GHS

EM

Large class size Time constraints Heavy workloads

Termly reports

GHS

WL Heavy workloads

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DN: ‘Errr errr I am very very dissatisfied with errr the format of the report card because (…) the class teacher has no space to sign, no space to comment whether the student is weak, whether he is average, whether he is good, there is no space. So, the…it’s very very unsatisfactory the, the way the report cards are laid out’. EM: ‘Errr, it is true that what we have errr out there as training is so theoretical. Errr when you get now into the field to put that into practice it becomes a little bit different because of maybe some of the factors I have, I have given that errr some…be…because of the number, the great number of students you have with scripts you have to correct and then the time frame. Then given the ‘sequence’ system we are using(…) There’s a lot of pressure on you; you have to finish these scripts within this given period and submit marks. So, there are times when errr (…) you just can’t draw the line, you know. It’s like (…) something tells you you are not doing your job well but because maybe, ‘Oh, if I don’t finish it before this given period of time I could have…receive a query’ and the rest, so, you rush your work and might not do it just the way you wanted to’. EM: ‘(…) Then in their report booklets…in their report errr cards or papers the space provided there is not enough. It’s so very small. You, just can’t comment on the child’s performance. The highest thing you can say is, ‘Oh, the student is average or has dropped’. The in-depth…it does not give an in-depth of the student’s performance, so the parents errr might not be able to get a feel of what I wanted to say like if I had enough space to comment on it’.

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KT: ‘OK. And errr do you sometimes check to find out if errr your students use emmm feedback that you give about their, their work to make improvements on their learning subsequently?’ WL: ‘Based on errr…well, for that I will tell you as for now I’ve not done so because of the amount of work I have’.

As Brown & McIntyre (1993:13) had confirmed, ‘there is well documented dissatisfaction of beginning and experienced teachers with the relationship between the theory they are offered in their training and the experiences they have in classrooms’. Miss EM’s explanation of difficulties she faces shows that with the introduction of the ‘sequence’ system (a system introduced by MINEDUC according to which students in secondary schools are to be tested after every five weeks as part of formative assessment), teachers cannot help provide feedback of low quality. To use her words, ‘It’s like…something tells you you are not doing your job well…you rush your work and might not do it just the way you wanted to’. The sense of frustration and helplessness one can feel in her account is due, perhaps, to her willingness but inability to do what she was trained to do. It reflects a possibility that training programmes in Cameroon are not well tailored to help teachers deal pre-emptively with some of the difficulties she mentions. It also supports my argument that material conditions under which teachers work in a given environment provide a good example of how context determines the existence and delivery of feedback. Heavy workloads have an impact on teachers’ ability to carry out systematic checks to see if students do use feedback they are given to make improvements on their work and learning. Those teachers who do not may certainly use this as a pretext to explain lapses in their duties, but this is not likely to be the case everywhere in Cameroon. In most rural areas in the country, only one or two teachers may be assigned to teach a curriculum subject in an entire secondary school. Further evidence of the importance of workloads as an impinging factor can be found in Mr WL’s account in Table 6.2. Heavy workloads and time constraints affect teachers’ ability to give detailed feedback. While analysing samples of students’ written work, I noticed Mr RW made no use of formative

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comments even in areas where it was clear they faced difficulties when answering questions. I later asked him whether he thinks such comments are not useful to students and his response to the question and the conversation that ensued are reported in Table 6.2. While distributing students’ scripts he has marked, Mr RW uses the opportunity to inform them of deficiencies he noticed in their work. Since there is no time to point to specific errors that affected the quality of each student’s work, he has adopted coping strategies, some of which, as I will argue shortly, could also be detrimental to students’ learning: For example: x He rushes over the marking exercise in order to meet administrative deadlines; x He speaks of errors noticed as if they apply to a group of individuals, not just to one or two students hoping that students will later check their work to find out if they are concerned or not; x He opts for oral and avoids written feedback; x He concentrates only on perennial problems of wider significance that feature in a good number of students’ scripts. When teachers rush over the marking exercise it is likely they will not critically examine what students have written and will not pay attention when providing feedback to specific problems they are facing. Providing class rather than individual-focused feedback is, arguably, an excellent coping strategy in a situation of large student numbers. It also means however, that the teacher must be convinced that all students have the interest, motivation, and desire to check their individual circumstances and determine whether feedback presented to the whole class applies to them personally. Material conditions: School reports Teachers also think their school’s official report that students and parents get termly is not good enough. Such reports that describe students’ performances on the whole via summative marks and grades have always been criticised for not providing sufficient information on particular areas of weakness and strength in subjects taught and on student conduct. To address this situation, many schools e.g. in the UK are now providing wider space for teachers to comment in detail (see Clark & Power, 2000). According to Miss EM, her school management does not appear to have

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realised the usefulness of detailed comments. Progress reports in her school are unsuitable for feedback purposes and she could hardly conceal her disappointment on this issue (see her second account in Table 6.2). Problems identified comprise insufficient space that make in-depth reporting of students’ performance impossible, with the implication that students do not get sufficient feedback on their progress at school at the end of each term. From the sample of a progress report I chose for analysis here (Document 1 above), we can appreciate her concerns. The sample from GHS was selected because it contains the most amount of information, some of which is not found in reports used in JBSS and PCAS e.g. renditions of entries in both English and French, and provision for subject teachers’ names and remarks. One can easily point to a series of shortcomings which Goacher & Reid (1983) had identified as characteristics of reports used in UK secondary schools before the 1970s. First, reporting is done on a single sheet bearing complex and varied amounts of information2, which confirm Miss EM’s view that very little space is provided and what is allocated is suitable only for remarks that summarily depict students’ subject attainments. In this situation, the teacher cannot point to specific areas in students’ work that need to be dealt with and parents cannot make informed judgements about remedial actions. Next, the space provided for the Class Council’s overall remarks allow only for numerical information and ticks to be entered e.g. number of absences, warnings, punishments and merits, which cannot explain, for instance, why it was decided a student should be singled out and expelled or put in ‘Honour Roll’. Apparently, the intention in reporting is to provide feedback only superficially, perhaps to reduce teachers’ workloads. Given the large number of students teachers deal with, providing detailed reports for each of them will certainly be cumbersome on available time and energy. 2 The report is formatted to contain the following broad types of information and in a rather superficial manner: scores students earned per subject in two termly tests (‘sequences’); average termly scores per subject; how a student fared in a subject compared to peers; teachers’ remarks on students’ subject performances; total marks students obtained in a term and corresponding terminal average; student’s rank/position out of 20 in class relative to others plus a summative statement describing this rank; general mean class performance and annual average for three terms that determine promotion to the next class; information on disciplinary measures taken as a result of student misconduct during a term; class council’s overall remarks on students’ performances e.g. praising (congratulating), rewarding (placing student in ‘Honour Roll’), warning, punishing (expulsion) for appropriate and inappropriate work and/or conduct.

Contextual Constraints on the Feedback for Learning Relationship Document 6.1 Progress report slip obtained from Government High School

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Strikes and demonstrations The unfavourable working conditions discussed in this section do not make teachers’ tasks any easier and often lead to serious consequences with implications for feedback and learning. One such effect, very much felt during the research period in Cameroon, was strike action by secondary teachers in state schools that affected their students’ academic achievements. Non-state schools were unaffected. In the following interview extract, Clare:GHS suggests a link between teachers’ strikes, the drop in her English language performance and her overall termly average at the end of the academic year. KT:(…) What do you think errr accounts for this, this drop? CB: I really don't know because emmm for the third term results I haven't even seen my papers yet, so I can't tell what really happened. I haven't seen my paper, my 5th and 6th ‘sequence’ papers, so I don't know, I don't really know. KT: Why haven't you got your papers up to this point when you’ve already closed? CB: Emmm, some of the teachers haven't given the papers…I know that for English language I don't think they give the…gave the papers because so many teachers do not give the papers, the papers, yes… I believe I have so many mistakes in my report, yes, because so many of my marks were not put…two of the…our teachers did not put the marks and so many other teachers gave me wrong marks and some did not even give my marks, yes. Two subjects, for example Geography and French in which (…) I saw my papers and I had very good marks; if I had these two marks put on I'd have very… I’d have had a better average. KT: I was informed that some teachers errr were on strike and so refused to put students' errr marks on their report slips. Errr do you have any idea about that and what do you think of it? CB: Emmm, teachers were complaining something like their salaries were not enough and so on. The government had to increase, if not they'll give everybody 20 on 20 and so on. But emmm, the day they gave us the report cards they told us it was arranged, but we heard two of our teachers, French and Geography decided to still give the 20 on 20 to each…to every student

Teachers’ strikes were a local constraint which reflects dysfunction in the Cameroon educational system during the period of the research; they affected feedback provision on end-of-year examinations in two ways: x the situation of zero feedback; striking teachers decided to deprive students of feedback momentarily by withholding their results and

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refusing to put these in progress report slips. So students did not get complete feedback; x the situation of inappropriately delivered feedback; some teachers gave arbitrary marks of 20 on 20 to every student in each subject, thus students did not get the right feedback they expected or deserved. When probed on why she did not fill out students’ results in their reports as Clare claimed, Miss EM corroborated her student’s account of the strike action and said: ‘There was a call we had for a strike. The Teachers’ Trade Union asked the, the teachers to go on strike because our statutes have not been signed. So, the strike action was that we were supposed to give the maximum score of 20 on 20 to every student. And when I went in to fill in that mark the Vice Principal refused that I should not fill that mark, so in the end I didn’t fill in any mark for that class’. Document 6.2 is an excerpt on strikes published in ‘The Herald’, a national weekly in Cameroon. According to this newspaper, the call for strikes was made by SNAES (Syndicat National des Enseignants du Secondaire or Secondary Teachers’ Trade Union) in demand for better working conditions for teachers and an overhaul of certain features of the educational system: ‘bigger salaries, provision of basic teaching materials, better equipped schools, better structured careers, appointments to duty positions in respect of seniority and competence’. Another newspaper had reported in French that teachers were asked to give each student the ultimate pass mark with the consequence that the vast majority of marks entered in mark sheets and computerised do not reflect students’ actual level of competence: ‘La plupart des notes portées sur les registres, les copies et enregistrées dans les ordinateurs ne réflètent pas le niveau réel des élèves’. The main objective, of course, was to produce unrealistic success rates in schools that would render questionable the validity and reliability of their results and provoke a call by Government for these to be nullified. Though the articles do not highlight it, the repercussions on students’ learning cannot be underestimated. Commonsense knowledge tells us that students need to know how they have performed to determine whether there is need for improvement or not. For example, if we assume that teachers give fail marks with the hope that students will work harder and subsequently improve on these, then taking these marks hostage no matter how legitimate the ransom demanded is, does not help realise this objective. Students themselves are aware of the negative effects such an action may have on their learning. This is how Laura reacted when I mentioned the strike action and the arbitrary marks.

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Document 6.2 Newspaper report on teachers’ strikes

LN: I don’t like the idea because if you don’t really explain it to your parents…like I had (…)I’ve always failed French, so when my parents saw that I had 20 in French they were very surprised. I explained them the situation they say it was not good. I don’t like the idea. I think teachers should always put the right marks which is there.

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From a student’s viewpoint, the strike action cannot be justified due to its consequences on their schoolwork. Giving arbitrary marks is shown to have implications on the way parents interpret student’s results too. One of the unfavourable conditions under which the teachers I studied work, namely, large class sizes, is of particular significance as an impediment to successful feedback practice, hence, will be examined in fuller detail in the next section.

6.1.4 The question of class size ‘...Teachers do not meet pupils out of context, and class size can be seen as one of the contextual influences of classroom life, to which teachers and pupils will inevitably have to adapt...(Blatchford 2003:9). Classrooms with a culture of reasonable teacher-student ratios provide better opportunities for individualised teaching and feedback practice. Overall, studies report that teachers perceive large class sizes as a constraining factor on the strategies they can realistically adopt in class e.g. on their ability to provide individual-focused feedback (Day et al, 1996:8). In a study on ‘The impact of class size on effective teaching and learning’, Pedder (2001:29) was able to establish significant relationships between class size and a range of teachers’ classroom practices with implications for feedback e.g. the bigger the class size, the lower the frequency of interactions between teachers and students, the frequency of teacher probes after a question, the amount of teacher waiting time for student response, the amount of homework and numbers of assignments assessed, the frequency of teacher monitoring of students’ work, the number of positive teacher responses to student answers; also the lower the possibility that teachers will use oral tests for assessment, and explanations rather than lectures as instructional technique. Since independence in 1960, Cameroon has achieved one of the highest rates of school attendance in Africa, with primary enrolment rising in 1994 to an unprecedented 88% of children in the appropriate age group (Clarke , 2001:292). This, in practice, means more and more children obtain elementary education. It is good news for literacy without doubt; the downside is that increases in school enrolments have not been matched in Cameroon by the necessary provision of educational facilities such as more schools and bigger classrooms. Overcrowding has become a major problem not only in state-owned schools, but increasingly in church and privately-owned schools that hitherto boasted the prestige of having classes with 30 to 40 students. We see in Doc. 6.3 below how

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overcrowded a typical classroom can be in a state school in Cameroon. Other such photographs can be found in Appendix 4. Every single teacher that participated in this study moaned at some point in interviews about the unmanageable number of students in their classes. This was not without reason. The average number of students in lessons observed was 80 in PCAS, 60 in JBSS and 70 in GHS. Document 6.3 Mr WL and his students in a Chemistry lesson in GHS

As teachers revealed during post-observation discussions, these large numbers impacted a lot on their feedback practices by making it difficult for them to provide feedback in the way they wanted. Let us consider Mr JA’s response when asked whether he makes an effort to check that students use corrective feedback they are given to improve on their work. JA: Well, you know, with...with... given a big class you can't really do thorough checking (...)You see, sometime we always want them to do written corrections on their exercise books but sometime when they do this, with...given a large class, consider my class-a hundred and two- it is errr a bit difficult to spend time doing that when you have other subject to teach in other classes.

Mr JA finds it difficult to check if students are using corrective feedback as intended for improvement of work because they are too many. Even when he can afford to check, he is conscious that this is not as thorough as it should be. It is easy, as a result, for students to neglect corrections when

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they know no follow-up checks will be made to verify that they have been used and to good effect. Class size also impinges on more routine classroom processes like marking of written work and lesson preparation. Miss JN:JBSS provides an example of how with up to 120 students in both arms of Form 4A, the marking process for her is both laborious and consuming of time that could be allocated to household chores. One can understand her frustration. JN: (…) they have been following me with books that I should (…) help them mark but they are about one hundred and something in a class everyday. That means you want to kill me. How effective am I going to be ? (…) When do I prepare lessons for the next class? When do I even rest? When I…when, when do I cook in my house? When do I take care of my other things in the house?

Class size further constrains constructivist approaches to feedback practice. In the following excerpt, Mr WL:GHS justifies why he cannot attend to students individually to construct knowledge and feedback with them during lessons, because the teacher-student ratio in his class (1 to 80) is far from what he calls ‘an ideal case’. WL: (...) what you are talking about is an ideal case. In a, in a situation where you have, say, 10 students to 1 teacher (…) it is very possible for the teacher to monitor the students. But in a situation like ours where you have close to 80 students in one class if you give just one little problem on the board and you were to go from one person to the other and to monitor 80 students you'll discover that your period will end up with you just monitoring that, that particular exercise. So, it makes it very difficult for us. So, in my class I'll not be able to do it.

From what Mr WL says, we infer that constructivist approaches to teaching that involve giving close attention to individual students’ work will make little sense in a learning context where teachers do not have sufficient time to attend to students individually. They only have to accept that the quality of the feedback they provide is low since they most often have no direct control over the number of students the administration puts in their charge. The way teachers are constrained in their teaching practice as we have seen in the first part of this chapter makes clear that feedback is construed, delivered and received as part of a socio-cultural process involving factors that, jointly, also give it meaning in the substantive sense. It is now appropriate to discuss conditions under which students, as intended recipients of feedback, will successfully take it up and act on it.

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6.2 Conditions for optimal student uptake of teachers' feedback 6.2.1 Linguistic proficiency in language (s) of instruction For students to pick up and use feedback, they have to be sufficiently proficient in the language (s) in which feedback is provided. Linguistic proficiency is a key factor for feedback uptake in Anglophone secondary schools in Cameroon because students receive classroom instruction in English and, to a limited extent, French, in which their proficiency levels are generally low. In a sociolinguistic context where students struggle to learn more than one language at a time, it is reasonable that they be less proficient in some compared to others. Teachers in all the schools studied described students’ proficiency levels in English as reflected in their speech and writing only in relative terms: ‘not too good and not too bad’, ‘just fair’, ‘either poor or average’, ‘a little bit above average’, ‘fair’, ‘barely average’. Most of the students themselves admitted to having difficulties in speaking and understanding SE. This is perhaps one of the reasons why they often resorted to PE during lessons whenever they could e.g. when teachers were writing on the board and had their backs turned to them, or when they briefly went out of class. Utterances like ‘Wuna stop nois ticha di kam’, i.e. ‘Stop making noise for the teacher is coming’, and ‘Tabi, yu dong du nomba wan?’ i.e. ‘Tabi, have you answered question one?’, were common occurrences in lessons in PCAS, JBSS and GHS. It is possible these students are not confident of their oral expression in SE.3 Beginning with Doro:PCAS, I will examine each of the six students’ linguistic proficiency levels in English as far as their interview statements, school-based as well as standardised test (ST) results in Table 6.3 can tell.

3

It may also be a question of pattern of usage: the students may have realised that SE is more formal and in school interaction, reserved for communication with teachers and administrative staff. They are used to speaking PE whenever they are with friends.

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Table 6.3 Scores students obtained in the ST test in English Students Doro Laura Carl Vally Henry Clare

Score (%) 25 50 52 59 69 69

Doro claimed during interviews to be very good in English and to understand oral feedback teachers address to her in this language. She however also pointed out that her understanding is limited when her teachers use what she called ‘terms’. The word ‘terms’ is used here to mean complex terminology, learned and pedantic high-sounding words, the meanings of which are inaccessible to the inexperienced and uneducated. To ‘use terms’ is a PE expression fashionable in student talk at secondary level in Cameroon. KT: Ok. Só, yu nó get eni problem wit errr ondastandin weti wé ticha de di tok? DE: Nó, a nó get…na ólé emmm, somting laik emmm English Literature… KT: …Ehemn… DE:…wé alist na som kain tems dem lek wen i, i yus som tems fo klas den a di trai fo tel i sé mek i brok de tems daun mek wu ondastan am, yes. Translation KT: Ok, so you don’t have any problem with errr understanding what they say? DE: I don’t have…it’s only emmm, in a subject like emmm, English Literature… KT: …Ehemn… DE:… when certain things… ‘terms’…like when he uses some ‘terms’ in class that I try to tell him to simplify the terms for us to understand, yes.

We know Doro’s claims to proficiency in English are unfounded. Firstly, her preference for PE as the medium of communication in interviews is an indication that perhaps she is not very comfortable with her spoken English and did not want to make errors of expression that would be taperecorded. Other explanations can be offered for this e.g. the said interview was conducted in Doro’s house where she felt more relaxed to use a language of her choice and less obliged to use that which the school imposes on students. It seems likely as well that PE for her is an identity marker or as an ‘act of identity’, according to Tabouret-Keller & LePage

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(1997). In Cameroon, PE is socially and culturally associated with Anglophones of whom Doro and the researcher are examples. Secondly, we saw in Chapter 5 (section 5.3.1.2) that she consistently underperformed in this subject in school-based assessments. In the ST (Table 6.3), she scored only 25%, suggesting that she has severe difficulties in English that she did not admit. Vally:PCAS, on the other hand, admitted to being only an ‘averagely good’ student in English, and his ST test score of 59% as well as subject performances in teacher-made tests reflect this assertion. Vally even considers that problems faced in English could have affected his achievement in the subject by contributing to a drop in his third term scores: ‘I did not do well in the examination because of how difficult the ‘terms’ were in the subject’ This implies that the teacher of English made use of complex words in examination questions that he could not interpret. Certainly, the degree of complexity of a terminology depends on each student’s competence in the language. A word in English can be complex to one student and simple to another because one is more proficient in the language than the other, or is more familiar with its usage. However, that two students of the same class mention complexity in their teacher’s classroom talk as affecting their learning in English indicates that students at this level do not find it easy to process complex sentences e.g. those with multiple embedded propositions. While discussing students’ learning in English and Chemistry in GHS and what accounts for their claimed success in learning, I unwittingly asked Laura the following doublebarrelled question and the response she offered shows she did not understand it. KT: I’d like to find out what you think has contributed to the fact that you’ve learnt something in English and Chemistry. LN: Yes, I’ve learnt that emmm, it’ll help me. It’ll help me, say, if I don’t know anything I’ll ask the teacher to help me.

It is not uncommon that students find learned or pedantic words teachers use hard to understand; their levels of schooling, experience and exposure to language use simply do not match. Table 6.4 below is an inventory of selected ‘errors of competence’ (Corder, 1981) five of the six students4 4

As mentioned before, interviews with Doro were conducted in Pidgin English, hence, did not count for error analysis. The expression ‘language error’ as used in this chapter reflects Pit Corder’s (1981) view of ‘errors of competence’ that a language learner makes as he tries to gain mastery of a second (target) language. Corder argues (p. 10) that such errors are systematic, do not result from chance

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made in their utterances during interviews. It indicates the nature of the difficulties they are facing in SE, the language they chose for communication in interviews, as follows: x Morphological and grammatical: non-mastery of rules governing comparison of adjectives, subject-verb agreements, tenses, adverbs, relative pronouns; x Lexical: malapropism or use of an incorrect word or expression in a position in a sentence where another word would normally be desirable. At times, this is due to interferences from PE and French; x Phonological: incorrect pronunciation of words; x Syntactic: wrong sentence structure e.g. wrong ordering of words in sentences. Table 6.4 Selected examples of language errors students made during interviews School

PCAS

Student

Vally

Sample utterance with error - ‘(…) even in answering questions you don’t feel shile in class’. - ‘In another circle again he puts a sign which I don’t know how to call in English but I will call it in French which they call ‘accent circonflexe’ - ‘So, we do our corrections collectively and we pass them to the teachers’5 - ‘I mean at times when we have visitors, if we don’t want to expose our secret we speak in our dialect to avoid the visitors from getting our discussion or our secrets’ - ‘(…) when I do some errors my guardians are able to correct me as

Main error type Lexical Syntactic Lexical (PE) Lexical

Lexical (French)

factors like fatigue, temporary memory loss, etc, and that they enable one to reconstruct the language learner’s knowledge of the language to date. Corder contrasts these with ‘errors of performance’ or ‘mistakes’ that are committed due to slips of the tongue (pen), memory lapses, tiredness, strong emotion, etc, but which do not reflect a defect in knowledge of the target language. 5 In Cameroon Pidgin English, to ‘pass your book to the teacher’ simply means to hand it over to him/her, so that they can mark work done, for instance.

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JBSS

JBSS

GHS

6

Carl

Henry

Clare

well as if they do errors I’m able to correct them’6 -‘(…) the Discipline Master has already touched me with a cane’.7 - ‘It is important to learn because I’ll like to know what is happening in my country and what is waiting me before’.8 - ‘(…) it’s going to help them not to cheat and it’s going to help you to write more better next time if you fail’. - ‘Well, I’m supposed to take my bookwork very serious9; I’m supposed to do all my, all my assignments and read’ - ‘(…) even in class she doesn’t just pump up our heads with ‘stuff’10 - ‘Geography is too voluminous so we couldn’t read all that. So, he gave us a specific, specific syllable for us to read. - ‘He don’t give any chance for students to talk’. - ‘As I say, it emmm, it's going to make our work much more easier in Form 5, yes’ - ‘(…) when they comes in class they’ll just say…or when the period is over by 5 minutes they’ll start provocating ‘Time over, time over’ - ‘(…) they read somebody’s name and then they will read what the child has wrote on the paper’ - No, but some teachers when they

Lexical (PE) Lexical (PE) Morphological

Lexical (PE) Lexical (PE) Lexical

Morphological Morphological

Lexical Morphological Lexical (PE) Syntactic

A word for word translation of the French expression ‘Faire des fautes’ in English would be ‘Do errors’, which is inappropriate in Standard English. 7 That is, ‘has beaten me up using a whip’, usually referred to as a cane. 8 That is, ‘what lies ahead of me (in future)’. 9 That is, ‘take studies very seriously’. 10 That is, ‘in class the teacher does not simply lecture when imparting knowledge’.

Contextual Constraints on the Feedback for Learning Relationship GHS

Laura

are talking they ‘rap’, especially the English teachers’11 - ‘It means that (…) some of the places that (…) you did not answer made you to lose some marks and which made…which have to make you that you have to go back and check on what you have been (…) - ‘(…) the teacher too can help you because it’s not everything the teacher knows, so you have to do it your own self, too’. - ‘(…) like children who are doing ‘cartouches’ or they just like to write…when they don’t un…they don’t understand anything they write it on a paper and bring’12 - ‘Sometimes, she usually say, ‘Ok let’s speco, maybe this thing can come’.13 - ‘…you’ll not like to answer it because the teacher always answer you rude in class and makes you feel bad’.

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Lexical & Syntactic Lexical (French) Lexical (PE) Morphological

Following a count of all the errors on the thirty interview transcripts, Table 6.5 shows the number of errors each of the five students made.

11

That is, ‘to speak too fast and/or with a Western and especially American accent’ 12 In Cameroonian youth jargon, students who hideously bring their notes or other study material into an examination with the intention of cheating are said to make ‘cartouches’. It is not clear why this particular word is used in this context because in French, it refers to ‘bullets’, an altogether different reality. 13 That is, ‘let’s make speculations on which questions are going to feature e.g. in the examination’

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Table 6.5 Number of errors of competence in English that five students made School

Student

No. of errors

PCAS JBSS JBSS GHS GHS

Vally Henry Carl Clare Laura

50 15 25 20 80

% of errors (N=190)* 26.3 7.8 13.3 10.5 42.1

* Approximated total of errors found in data

As the table shows, 50 errors (the next highest number) were found in Vally’s utterances. This means effectively that though he did averagely well in the ST in English (Table 6.3), he still has a lot of work to do in the subject. Of all the students, Henry was the most proficient in English. He made only 15 language errors and was quite articulate. His termly results discussed in Chapter 5 showed that he scored a good pass in the subject in all three terms. He also scored a good pass, 69%, in the ST. Carl made 25 language errors. His ST score of 52% and teacher-given scores in English place him just above the borderline. Like Vally, he also has to work harder to improve his proficiency level in English. Clare appears to be good in English; she made 20 errors in her utterances during interviews and scored 69% in the ST. Her school-based results discussed in Chapter 5 also show her as being more proficient in the subject than many of her peers in GHS. Finally, Laura recorded the highest number of language errors, 80, though she claimed to be doing very well in English. Her scores both in the ST (50%) and termly assessments suggest she is an average student whose deficiencies in English may be making her unavailable to teachers’ feedback. Consider the following conversation. KT: (…) Now, emmm, do you generally understand the language your teachers use in class, do you have any problems with errr understanding them when they talk? LN: No, but some teachers when they are talking they ‘rap’, especially the English teachers. They ‘rap’ in such a way that children don’t understand, and when they make like that some children will start laughing which means that they just make the class to be a fun class, which is not good.

From what she says, it is clear she understands her teachers’ discourse only occasionally. When they speak with an unfamiliar accent, she and her

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classmates are left wanting. It is safe to conclude on the basis of such evidence that even though it is not a sufficient condition for successful feedback uptake, adequate proficiency levels in the language (s) teachers use in class will help students a great deal to understand the feedback they provide. Apparently, proficiency in English not only affects ability to understand teachers’ discourse in English language lessons but their performance in other subjects as well. We know, for instance, that Geography and Chemistry make use of technical jargon and that in a preGCE class, students are required to do extensive reading in these subjects. It is possible that those who are linguistically strong in English (especially in listening and reading comprehension) will also do well in the other subjects. Table 6.6 Scores students obtained in ST listening & reading comprehension and SB assessments in Geography and Chemistry Students

Vally Doro Henry Carl Clare Laura

ST scores Listening + Reading Comp. (%)

67.7 42.5 70 53.8 72.5 55

SB scores Geo/Chem (%) 52.5 0 54.5 39.5 70 54.5

I used Pearson Product Moment Correlation to test this hypothesis (see Table 6.6 and Fig. 6.1) where proficiency levels in English are represented by Standardized Test (ST) scores in the two sub skills combined, and performance in Geography and Chemistry, by school-based (SB) assessments. Pearson Product Moment Correlation is a statistical technique that enables calculation of co-variance between dependent and independent variables. Through this technique one can also predict performance on one school subject from performance on other subjects with a high degree of accuracy.

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Fig. 6.1 Correlation between linguistic proficiency in English and academic achievement in Geography and Chemistry 80

Standardised Test Score (English)

70

60

50

40

Rsq = 0.7701 -20

0

20

40

60

80

School-Based Assessment (Geo & Chem)

Correlations

Standardised Test Score (English) School-Based Assessment (Geo & Chem)

Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed) N Pearson Correlation Sig. (2-tailed)

Standardised Test Score (English) 1 . 6 .878*

N

School-Based Assessment (Geo & Chem) .878* .022 6 1

.022

.

6

6

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

There was a significant positive correlation between ability level in English and attainment in Geography & Chemistry [r = +0.878, n = 6, p = .022 < .05, two-tailed]. This means that up to 77% of variation in scores in these subjects can be explained by scores obtained in listening and reading comprehension in English and vice versa. Obviously, only two variables were considered in the calculations; the influence of the many extraneous variables likely to affect students’ academic performance at school was not taken into account. However, that ability level in English correlates so

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highly with attainment in other subjects shows that students’ comprehension of teachers’ language affects other aspects of their studies and, therefore, should not be taken for granted. In the next section, the question of students’ understanding of feedback as a pre-condition for uptake will be revisited from another angle. In particular, I will examine reasons why, at times, they do not understand teachers’ feedback.

6.2.2 Understanding of teachers’ classroom discourse Since feedback is delivered through language, students’ ability to process this language determines their understanding of feedback. Pearce & Ackley (1995) made the point that as writing instructors continue to look for more effective ways to give sufficient feedback, one problem they face is that ‘students don’t understand the feedback they receive’. There is evidence from interviews to show that the students researched understand written more than oral feedback. All students interviewed gave the impression from their responses that each of them could interpret written signs, comments, and marks on samples of their work I presented to them for comment, and could correctly explain what these meant for them in terms of what further action (if any) they required them to take. The first illustration of this assertion is an excerpt from an interview with Vally:PCAS, the second with Carl:JBSS and the third with Clare:GHS. KT: Ehemn. Now, what does it mean to you if a teacher says you’ve got 5 on 20 in a Geography test? VA: It errr first of all tell you that you’re very weak in the subject and you need to sit up; it’s not there to discourage you, it‘s there to encourage you that at least you have to work hard in order (…) in order to have more marks in the next test. KT: OK. Can you read again please? CM: ‘Read the passage and extract your, your points from there, follow the text’ KT: So, what do you understand by this? How do you understand it? CM: It means that we should read the passage and we should come out with our points from that very passage. KT: OK. Now, why do you think the teacher put this, this on your paper? CM: This is because I never followed the, the rules that was given by the teacher. KT: (…) Now, when teachers put these signs on, on your scripts do you know what they mean? CB: Yes, I do. KT: OK, what do they mean to you?

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Chapter Six CB: Emmm, the ticks there they mean it’s correct, the emmm, the…these signs here means its wrong, yes, the cross, and then the circle, for example, means, emmm, you did not emmm, you did not write a, a word properly… KT: …OK CB: … yes, or you began a sentence with a small letter, yes.

We know that written, unlike spoken feedback, is articulated in contracted and less detailed form. This means it is better planned and better phrased, it is expressed in simple language, in simple and not complex sentences. (Tangie, 2015) also reported that due to insufficient time available for marking and the nature of teacher-pupil interaction in the context of written tasks, teachers when providing feedback on such tasks make use of fewer feedback categories (mainly approval, praise, disapproval, probe and corrective feedback) than they do when giving feedback orally. So, the fewer the number of feedback forms teachers use, the easier it becomes for students to recognise them. The main problem students were facing seemed to be with orally-mediated feedback. In interviews, they showed in three ways that, generally, they are facing problems with reading and listening comprehension: 1) their self-accounts of how much of a challenge understanding what they read is to them; 2) several times, some of them asked for certain questions to be repeated even though, arguably, these had been clearly and audibly phrased; 3) providing responses that were in no way related to the questions they were asked, an indication that they misunderstood the questions. Below, I present illustrations of each of the types of evidence of student misunderstanding of teachers. Let us begin by examining Doro’s (PCAS) discussion of how she will react if she received fail marks on her work, whilst her classmates got pass marks. DE: A get tu rid hada, rid an ondastan. Wen a rid a ondastan a gó bi laik dem bicos weti di ki mi na ridin an ondastandin. Nónoting nó fit pas yu if yu fit rid an ondastan. Translation DE: I have to read harder, read and understand. When I read and understand I’ll be at the same level as them because what hinders my progress in studies is reading and understanding. No problem can be insurmountable when you are able to read and understand what it demands.

She emphasised understanding of subject matter as the keystone to success in learning; when a student can ‘read and understand’ nothing can stand between her and learning. Yet, it is this ability to read and understand that Doro finds most challenging in her studies which means she has to work harder to improve on her reading comprehension skills. There was some

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evidence that teachers’ language use (choice of diction) was perhaps not always tailored to suit the proficiency levels of their students, accounting, in part, for difficulties they faced in picking up feedback addressed to them. Consider the following discussion with Vally:PCAS. KT: When teachers comment on answers you give in class, do you understand what they say or what they mean? VA: At times, we understand what they say when they don’t use emmm, difficult language, I mean ‘terms’, ‘high terms’, we understand them’

The next four interview extracts show how Vally and Laura:GHS requested to have questions repeated during interviews even when they were very clearly asked. KT: OK, and when you receive your work which has been marked, do you understand what teachers want you to do about it? VA: Sorry KT: Which do you prefer? Is it teachers who tell you how well you’ve done in your academic work or conduct or is it those who do not? VA: Sorry, I haven’t understood that question well. KT: What do you think is responsible for this success in your learning? LN: Emmm, I’ll like you to go over again. KT: Now, can you give me just one or two examples of something which you’ve learnt specifically in English language or Chemistry because of corrections that you had to do in class? LN: Take over the question.

The next interview extract from Carl:JBSS indicates how, at times, student answers to questions were wide off the mark to show that the questions asked were simply misunderstood. We shall see that students’ ability to understand utterances depends on whether these are expressed in a compound/complex or in a simple clause structure. Notice for instance, that Carl was able to respond appropriately to my question only when I rephrased it as a simple sentence. KT: Now, emmm, do your teachers ask you to do corrections on your work after they’ve marked and given back your papers? CM: They usually ask us to look over the paper; if there is any mistake or any sentence that ha…has not been marked, we should bring it to them so they can give the marks. KT: So, they don’t ask you to do your corrections? CM: They also ask us to do corrections and show them in the next class.

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Selected teachers also commented on their students’ (mis) understanding of classroom discourse and feedback, and especially the reasons for this. Table 6.7 provides a summary of the views of three English language teachers representing each of the three schools studied. Due to the lengths of the verbatim quotations from which the views originate, I considered it appropriate to re-express the main ideas they contain, with care taken not to distort meanings contained in the original text. Five main factors are identified: low student IQ levels, inattentiveness and distractedness during lessons, low proficiency levels in English, misguided interest in less useful forms of feedback, and insufficient time for teachers to explain themselves well. Table 6.7 Teachers’ explanations for students’ misunderstanding of feedback School

Teacher

PCAS

JA

JBSS

JN

Explanation x It is normal that not all students will understand the teacher’s language given their differing levels of intelligence. x Due to ‘natural dullness’, poor social conduct in class e.g. inattentiveness, distractedness during lessons, lack of seriousness in lessons, many children become unavoidably unavailable to teachers’ feedback. x Teachers are not compelled to halt lessons simply because certain students have not understood a point. x Individual differences in overall intelligence levels means some students e.g. slow learners find it more difficult to understand teacher feedback. x Low linguistic proficiency levels in English are a factor; some terminologies used to explain feedback are not easy for students to grasp at their level. x The teacher does not have enough time during lessons to simplify terminologies all the time.

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GHS

EM

239

x Not all students understand feedback and those who do not show signs of having learnt nothing from corrective feedback when they repeat errors on issues that had been corrected before. x Students understand written feedback and the basis for which it is provided, though they sometimes question teachers’ marking when they obtain failed marks. x Inattention while corrections are being done means students are not receptive to corrective feedback when it is provided. x Most often, students ‘are only dying for their scripts’ and their attention is diverted to less helpful feedback forms like marks and grades.

Table 6.7 provides evidence that some teachers are neither surprised nor concerned that feedback is not always picked up. They appear to have accepted the situation as something about which they can do little or nothing because it is both unreasonable and unrealistic to attempt to ensure that all students understand the feedback they are given. It should also be recognised that with limited time available for teaching, they are forced to compromise between the desire to explain concepts well or attend to individual student needs which the act of good teaching requires and the necessity to ensure that interactions are long enough for these purposes to be achieved. Teachers also seem to be attributing responsibility for misunderstanding of feedback to students themselves. By implication, students are being called upon to be more conscious of what is required as part of their own contribution to the learning process. For example, they should (as much as possible) observe basic rules of classroom conduct such as being attentive in class and showing commitment to lessons; they should redirect their interest from marks and grades to the formative feedback they are given. That students with low marks challenge their teachers’ evaluative judgements by asking for more marks (according to Miss EM), is evidence that they are overly focussed on marks rather than on learning, and do not yet understand their teachers’ intention of reporting fail marks. The result of all this is that some feedback provided remains ineffective.

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The problem with figuratively expressed feedback During classroom observations it occurred that students’ understanding of feedback is much a function of their mastery of particular classroom discourses that teachers share with their students e.g. teachers can express feedback in figurative language that those who do not belong to their class community will find difficult to understand. This is exactly what happened in a Chemistry lesson in GHS. A student (Salamatou) gave an incorrect response to a question was told ‘Thank you’ by Mr WL. She took this as a compliment and was confused when she realised that the feedback reaction instead provoked laughter from her classmates. Unfortunately, the incident was only documented by hand; the tape-recorder failed to function properly on this occasion and so did not capture the linguistic exchanges between Mr WL and his students. ‘Thank you’, at face value, is praise, ‘positive’ feedback meant to be complimentary and to reinforce desirable behaviours. Understandably, it is totally unexpected that someone who is praised is laughed at. What the student did not understand, and that everyone else did (as the teacher later told me) is that her contribution was out of focus, hence, inappropriate. It was different from the response the teacher and the remainder of the students expected even the least academically able student in class to come up with. The teacher’s ‘praise’ was therefore meant to be ironically interpreted as ‘criticism’ and this intention was quickly understood by all but Salamatou who offered the answer. An informal chat with her after the lesson revealed that she was a Bukinabe student whose parents had recently moved to Cameroon. A national of Burkina Faso, a French-speaking country situated to the west of Cameroon along the West African coast, she had just started schooling in GHS and, apparently, was not yet familiar with all of the discourses her teachers share with students in her class. Though her case was an isolated incident, it is nevertheless strong enough evidence to imply that success with teachers’ feedback does not only depend on mastery of a subject or the language of its instruction. If it is part of classroom teaching culture for teachers to code and express feedback in figurative terms, then anybody who is not an integral part of this culture or is new to it will experience conflict when making sense of teachers’ feedback. The classroom teaching and learning culture as well as values actors attach to certain happenings in class should therefore be given consideration in research on feedback and learning. The last context-related condition for uptake concerns government

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policy on Pidgin English and corporal punishment in schools.

6.2.3 Government policy and ideological discourses on Pidgin English (PE) and corporal punishment (CP) in schools Through Parliament, the Cameroon Government has imposed a ban on the use of PE in formal education14; though it placed a similar ban on CP through MINEDUC this is not reflected in practice. In the context of Cameroon, PE and CP are related in a number of ways: through legislation, they are imposed by Government on the Cameroonian people without consideration given to the personal opinions of students whom the legislation affects most; advocates of the new values associated with PE and CP use the educational system to promote and reproduce them over time; students who do not respect the ban on PE are corporally punished by watchdogs schools have placed to enforce the ban. I want to argue in this section that from a linguistic, educational and cultural point of view, Government policy and action in this regard undermine feedback uptake and learning. State policy and ideological discourses on PE Political changes that took place in Cameroon in the early half of the 20th century influenced its language policy. English and French, official languages used during the colonial era have remained the main languages of administration and education in Cameroon long after independence and at the expense of PE. Many (e.g. Chumbow & Simo-Bobda, 1995; Povey, 1983; Todd, 1982) have recognised that PE is the most widely used language in Cameroon. Despite its large number of speakers and growing use across the country, it still does not enjoy the privileged status of Standard English (SE) e.g. it is not standardised, not accepted in formal communication, high-level administrative work and, perhaps most importantly, not recognised by Government and the Cameroonian people as a language of education. To d’Epie (1998), its use has been, and is still largely confined to informal day-to-day interactions. Government policy on PE seems to have been influenced by two ideological assumptions: 14

According to Wolf (2001), the Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon (1997) decreed that English and French shall be the main languages of school instruction. By implication, PE and vernacular languages are not officially mandated to play this role. Though several non-governmental initiatives are being taken nowadays to use vernacular languages for literacy (see Tadadjeu, 1997), no such endeavours have been reported for PE.

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firstly, PE is negatively perceived as having a low social status compared to SE because it offers few opportunities for socio-economic progress in society; secondly, it is associated with low student proficiency levels in SE. As we saw in section 6.2.2, students’ misunderstanding of teachers’ classroom discourse is an impediment to their uptake and use of feedback. While several other explanations were given for this, the most heralded view expressed during interviews was that excessive reliance by students on PE in their daily interactions in and out of school results in low ability levels in SE. The two assumptions have been echoed in research in several ways: 1) ‘When the pidgin contains elements based upon a European language, it is feared that use of the pidgin in schools will make it harder for pupils to learn the European language correctly’ (Charpentier, 1997:223). 2) PE keeps children from learning ‘or delays the acquisition of Standard English’ (Tchoungui, 1983:96). 3) In urban settings, some parents resist the use of PE in favour of SE which they feel can better enhance their children’s chances in school (Wilt, 1994:59). 4) Because of its low social status and prestige –does not offer possibilities for advancement, most Cameroonian parents would not like PE as a language of instruction for their children (Todd, 1982:10). 5) Since the vocabulary of PE is largely derived from SE, PE is usually dismissed by many as nothing more than a disfigurement of speech or badly used English; according to Todd (2003 – online), some people refer to it as ‘Bad English’, ‘Broken English’, or ‘Bush English’, labels which she personally does not support. 6) PE is as a result inferior in status and in function to SE and, like Creole in Jamaica, considered a language for the uneducated (Christie, 2003:38).15 By its ban on PE in school policy and practice, the Cameroon Government is directly imposing the ideology that PE is a bad language; it is because the language is rejected in formal education that people associate it with negative stereotypes. As will be shown below, Government has used the 15

Christie explains that since the medium of education in Jamaica has always been English, an individual’s educational level has always been judged from the degree of his or her proficiency in English. Therefore, Creole is associated with illiteracy and ignorance.

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school system as a medium for transmitting and reproducing this discourse and appears to be succeeding in the process. The imposition of values Without doubt, the biggest single institution promoting the official languages in Cameroon is the educational system (Robinson, 1993:59). As early as 1967, that is, a few years after Cameroon gained independence, Ashu (cited in Todd, 1982:85) identified the secondary school as being the arena where ‘the battle to combat Pidgin English is most fought’. Through legislation, Government has persuaded various stakeholders in schools: administrators, teachers, and students to accept the idea that PE should not be promoted in classroom communication and school literacy. It is only through the work of linguists that we see a more balanced account of the strengths and weaknesses of PE (e.g. Todd, 1982; Povey, 1983; Mbangwana, 1983; Chumbow & Simo-Bobda, 1995; d’Epie, 1998).There is evidence in my data to show that the legislation is working because school administrators have made clear to students where and when not to use PE and the consequences awaiting defaulters (see tables 6.8, 6.9 & 6.10). The way teachers and students talked about PE in interviews shows that politicians have, to some extent, won their minds on their side of the debate whether it should be used for education or not. For instance, on why he would not like to speak PE at home, Carl:JBSS remarked that: ‘it’s preferable to speak ‘good English’ because in school we speak only ‘good’ English, not ‘bad’ English’. Perhaps the most apt illustration of how successfully the ideology has been imposed is the following excerpt of an interview with Mr JA:PCAS:Eng: JA: (…) I tend to discourage the idea of Pidgin language in class because my students are fond of talking Pidgin language in class (…) what I did of recent was that I made it as a routine that as soon as I enter the class I want them…I want to remind them to be very conscious that during that particular period I do not want any student to speak Pidgin language, and then I always make them greet me ‘Today, this day I promise that I will not speak Pidgin language in class, particularly in English language classes’ and I always make them repeat that everyday, everyday, everyday before I proceed into my lectures. A defaulter will be punished and so the students have now… they are now changing positively. So, I wish if my other colleagues will always want to emulate my example I think we’ll do something better to change the students.

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This is an example of how teaching practices are designed to implement state-prescribed language policies. The extent to which teachers in PCAS are determined to discourage the use of this language can be seen in the following: If disturbing in class by speaking out of turn constitutes an offence, then this offence is even more offensive and warrants a more severe punishment when it is committed in PE. When I asked how she would feel to speak PE with her friends in class, Doro:PCAS replied: ‘If de si mi as a di ivin disteb de klas den egen a di tok na Pidgin ma kraim gó wors. Só wen wi di tok English insaid klas i ké ticha wan ivin ponish wi wen yu di disteb i nó gó tu ponish yu dat wé bicos yu di tok na English’. In English, this should read: ‘If I were speaking Pidgin English I would feel very bad because if I were seen talking in Pidgin English that’ll be a more serious offence since I’d already been disturbing the class by talking out of order in the first place. Therefore, when we are disturbing but speaking in English language in class and the teacher has to punish us, the punishment will be lighter because we are speaking English language’. Such an explanation suggests that students’ language preferences are influenced by personal convictions about the relative advantages one language has over another as much as by school dictates. If they fail to recognize PE as a language in its own right, it is much the result of the types of values the educational system adopts and imposes on them. Doro’s preference for PE to make the above point illustrates however that for some of them, Government policy does not work all the time and as far as the use of PE is concerned, their practice is at odds with their beliefs. Table 6.8 Students and teachers’ views on the status of PE School

Participant

Opinions expressed on the status of PE

Doro

x Some parents of good socio-economic background, prohibit their children from speaking PE both in school and at home. x It is an obligation for every student to speak SE in class in or out of the presence of teachers. x All students have been made to understand that PE is forbidden in school and even at home, so they do not feel free conversing with parents in PE.

PCAS

Vally

JBSS

Carl

Contextual Constraints on the Feedback for Learning Relationship

PCAS

RW

JBSS

DN

GHS

WL

GHS

EM

245

x Warning signs are put on billboards in different areas of the campus prohibiting the use of PE and defaulters are punished. x Students are required by school rules and regulations to communicate in class and on campus in SE, not PE. Resorting to the use of PE in either situation is punishable. x Students would be punished for speaking PE in class and even out of class, were it possible to monitor their language use after school hours. x Students would be punished if found discussing in PE in class because the classroom gives a rare opportunity for them to practise SE usage.

Students’ and teachers’ opinion on and perception of PE in tables 6.8, 6.9 and 6.10 which reinforce one another provide further illustration of how much the policy on PE is succeeding to ensure that its ideological discourse is passed from one generation of Cameroonians to another. Words and expressions like ‘prohibit’, ‘not allowed’, ‘obligation’, forbidden’, ‘punished’, ‘punishable’, ‘PE is a bad language’, ‘PE is a deformed way of speaking SE’, ‘PE contaminates and destroys SE’, which could be found in or inferred from interview statements illustrate that the legislation on PE as well as the negative stereotypes it produces have been internalised and are being reproduced. Some of the opinions were offered in response to my remark that in some of the lessons I observed, a good number of students were at one moment or another conversing with friends in PE. Table 6.9 Teachers’ perceptions of PE in Cameroon School

Teacher

PCAS

JA

Perceptions of PE x Too frequent use of PE by students negatively affects their proficiency in SE. x Students tend to adopt ‘the pidgin approach’ involving use of PE lexical items in their writing, which is not helpful.

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PCAS

RW

JBSS

DN

JBSS

JN

GHS

WL

GHS

EM

x PE is ‘bad language’, an impediment to efficient learning and use of SE. x Students tend to mix up PE and SE in their writing and cannot distinguish one from the other. x PE adversely affects students’ reasoning and writing skills. x PE has a negative influence on SE because of lexical interferences – students ‘borrow’ PE words and use them in their SE expressions. x It exerts a negative influence on SE; increase in students’ proficiency levels in PE lead to a decrease in their proficiency levels in SE. x PE is only useful to those who have not been to formal education e.g. ‘old mothers’ and ‘grandparents’. x In front of tasks in SE, students tend to reason out their ideas first in PE before expressing their thoughts in SE. This works against their proficiency in SE because something is always lost in the translation process.

Table 6.10 Students’ perceptions of PE in PCAS, JBSS and GHS School

Student

Vally PCAS

Perceptions of PE x Any student ‘who wants to promote the habit of speaking PE in class’ must be punished. x SE is negatively influenced by frequent use of PE and this phenomenon manifests itself in classmates’ writing. x Speaking SE enhances oral communication skills in the language. x SE, unlike PE, describes experiences much more beautifully.

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Doro

JBSS

Henry

Carl

GHS

Clare

Laura

247

x Speaking PE in presence of parents shows lack of respect and improper upbringing. x Speaking SE enhances oral communication skills that can be valuable in interactions with people on the streets. x Speaking PE in an English language lesson is a sign of disrespect for the teacher. x Speaking SE at home is useful for learning in school because speaking SE at home compels one to write SE, not PE in school. x SE offers greater opportunities worldwide as it is a language of wider communication. x Though it is OK to speak PE at times, it is better to limit its use because it diminishes the quality of SE expressions e.g. accentuation is not the same in SE and PE and pronouncing a word incorrectly in PE may mean writing it in SE incorrectly, too. x Speaking SE and French enables one to improve communication skills in x these languages. x PE ‘is a deformed way of speaking English language’. x PE contaminates and destroys SE, reducing the possibility of earning good grades in English at school or to speak well in other subjects taught in SE. x It is inadmissible and ‘out of topic’ for teachers to use PE as a medium of education because it is prohibited in school and must not be spoken. x PE is likely to influence students’ use of SE negatively when answering questions – they may include PE words in their answers. x PE has a negative social significance – linked to the social status of one’s x parents. So, speaking PE suggests one is of low social standing, from a ‘poor background’, not being properly taken care of by parents.

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Overwhelmingly, perception of PE is negative and arguments advanced against the use of the language are of a linguistic and social nature. It is primarily seen as impinging on students’ ability to speak and write SE because of the way phonological, syntactic and lexical features of PE interfere in the production of sentences in SE. I also noticed instances of PE interference in students’ discourse in interviews, some of which were reported in section 6.2.1. It seems, however, that students’ language errors are too often misdiagnosed and the role of PE in this, overstated. It is plausible, as the following three arguments will illustrate, that PE is not the only factor accounting for deficiencies in the speech and writing of secondary students in Cameroon. Students are exposed to ungrammatical English by their uneducated parents and this affects the quality of their own linguistic productions. According to Bickerton (1984), some middle class parents with low levels of proficiency in SE want their children to learn the language and to attain a mastery level superior to theirs. To achieve this they choose to communicate with their children at home in SE and frequently, their language is far from being identical with the standard variety they aspire for their children in terms of the respect for grammatical rules, sentence structure, and the pronunciation of words. Besides, the correlation implied in Table 6.9 by Mr WL between achievement levels in PE and failure rates in SE is debatable. Examples abound of Cameroonian bilinguals with a good command of both SE and PE, at least at the level of oral production. This suggests that under the right circumstances one can speak PE fluently and regularly and still maintain high levels of proficiency in SE, without necessarily mixing the two up and Romaine (1994) agrees with this view. The author of this book is a living example. We can tell that some of the arguments against the use of PE can also work in favour of its use for literacy. The fact that students reason out ideas in Pidgin (according to Miss EM, Table 6.9) means the language is able to promote thinking and therefore creates cognitive advantages for students. Yiakoumetti (2003) recognises this as a possibility where two languages exist in a bilingual situation. Preventing the use of PE in formal education is depriving students of opportunities to construe thought in a language they find much easier to process, compared to SE and French. Expressions like ‘PE is useful only to old mothers and grandparents who have not been to formal education’, or ‘speaking PE shows improper conduct’ show that the ban on PE has created a sociolinguistic problem, namely, a barrier between the educated and the uneducated, an

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individual’s educational level being determined, amongst other things, by their linguistic proficiency in SE (Christie, 2003). Admittedly, it is the case as Vally, Doro, and Henry claim that speaking SE more frequently than PE will enhance communication skills in SE, and that SE permits wider communication with other speakers of English varieties worldwide and, at the moment, offers socio-economic advantages. Nevertheless, Doro goes too far in saying that speaking PE reflects uncouth manners suggestive of improper home upbringing. In fact, no assertion could be any further from the truth. There is research evidence suggesting that PE knows no boundaries and that Cameroonians with high social status and good education frequently indulge in conversation with not so privileged others via the medium of PE. Mbangwana (1983:79) states this quite emphatically: ‘PE is very crucial as a communicative bridge, for it links an Anglophone to a Francophone. It also links an Anglophone to another Anglophone, an educated Cameroonian to another educated one, a non-educated Cameroonian to another non- educated Cameroonian, and more importantly, an educated Cameroonian to a non-educated one’ (My emphasis).

How far can the Cameroon Government go with its policies and ideological discourses on PE? Imposition comes before resistance; when the educational system imposes norms and values not all students are comfortable with, there is bound to be resistance to the policy and this was observed during fieldwork in a variety of ways: x The preference by Doro (PCAS) for PE as mode of communication during interviews with the researcher, a language that is not validated by her school; x Students’ use of PE in class with one another when teachers are not in or not paying close attention to what they are doing; x Students discussing in PE with another teacher in class and in the presence of the English language teacher. During a lesson in PCAS, a student asked in PE, ‘Yu nó di bai yam?’, i.e. ‘Can’t you buy yours?’, when a History teacher dropped in and requested to borrow a History textbook; x According to Carl:JBSS, some students in his class ‘have vowed never to speak English in class’, to use it only when doing written tasks; x To Mr RW:PCAS, even when teachers interrupt a group of students conversing in PE on campus, they quickly return to the use of this language when teachers are no longer there to monitor their speech and

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this, in defiance of regulations : ‘Some of them even pretend to speak English, but by the time you go pass they go back to their Pidgin’. x According to Miss EM:GHS, students converse in PE with teachers and other staff on campus e.g. along the corridors, in staff rooms, etc during school hours. As she put it, ‘teachers are doing it in Pidgin, so what about students? All of this implies that not all students believe that SE is ‘superior’ to PE or that it is a taboo to speak PE and many are bold enough to confront teachers and express divergent opinions. To them, it should not be a question of one or the other but of both co-existing together. There is also evidence that not all teachers wholeheartedly adhere to state directives to ban PE from schools and that if they were given a free-hand to decide for themselves, perhaps some of them would expressly oppose the ban. As Wolf (2001:203) rightly said of the language situation in Cameroon, ‘PE cannot be locked out of the school; it inevitably finds its way into the classroom through the children and often through teachers themselves’. Any proposal to stamp it out altogether only reflects wishful thinking. The discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs about PE (as seen in tables 6.8 & 6.9) and their practice behind the scenes confirms that Government action is not completely effective. Students’ resistance to the ban also indicates that some of them are unhappy with the exclusive use in classrooms of languages they do not feel comfortable communicating in. If consulted on the issue or given permission to decide for themselves, many will welcome at least limited use of PE. For instance, Carl:JBSS confessed during interviews to facing difficulties in English and said: CM: I’ll also like that the teacher should at least explain some things in Pidgin because there are some words that are in Pidgin and English. KT: And errr why would you want some words to be explained in Pidgin? CM: Because in class there are (…) when the teacher is speaking in English students don’t understand, so the teacher should try to speak in Pidgin so that they can understand.

Here, PE is considered a facilitator and not a barrier to successful mastery of SE. From a linguistic and educational perspective therefore, promoting negative discourses on the language and directing students’ thinking towards it perhaps does more harm than good to their learning. Put differently, it is not PE that works against feedback for learning but Government’s language policy restricting its use. The issue of students’ understanding of feedback that is so crucial for learning cannot be resolved without a clear policy that seeks other measures to help improve

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their proficiency levels in SE and ability to understand teachers’ classroom talk. The same will be said later of corporal punishment. State policy and ideological discourses on CP in Cameroon: Mismatch between policy and practice CP can simply be understood as ‘the infliction of physical pain on some offender for some offence’ (Wilson, 2002: 409). It brings to mind some fairly direct kind of attack or assault on a person’s body e.g. facial disfigurement through smacking and beating. There have been conflicts in some societies over the use of CP in schools, on the one hand because of the increasingly strong feelings against its physical and mental effects, on the other hand, due to moral and ethical arguments against its institutionalised use in most extreme forms. It is certainly concerns like these that prompted Government action to outlaw CP in UK schools through the 1986 Education Reform Act (National Curriculum Council, 1996), a decision that was also taken by the Cameroon Government in the last quarter of the 1990s. In recent years, there have been debates in the UK Parliament about outlawing CP within the family on the basis of the right of children to be protected from their parents (BBC News–Online, July 2004). Such debates were prompted by a United Nations’ report that ‘urged the British Government to change the law which allows parents to smack children’ and that recommended ‘a total ban on corporal punishment within the family’. This call was greeted by mixed reactions both from within the Parliament and beyond, reflecting divided opinions on the issue. To strike a balance between protecting children and parents’ right to discipline them, the Peers rejected an outright ban and backed a compromise allowing parents to resort to ‘mild smacking’, i.e. one that does not cause bruises, scratches, reddening of the skin, and mental harm. From a socio-cultural perspective, the type of disciplinary measures parents and other adults are allowed to carry out on their children will vary from one society to another. They are usually determined by the type of cultural values a given community adheres to and the community’s beliefs about childhood and about parents’ role in nurturing their children into adults. According to DeLoache & Gottlieb (2000), for example, the Puritans of 17th century England believed that children are born evil and as soon as they show signs of this (e.g. via stubbornness, lies telling), each parent has a responsibility to rid them of it and to decide how best to do this. Their advice to parents is to use the cane because as they claim, it is both harmless and divine: ‘The gentle rock that breaks neither skin nor

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bone, with God’s blessing, has the power to break the bond of corruption in the heart’. During interviews, teachers’ opinions on the status of CP in their respective schools and Government’s attitude towards its practice (Table 6.11) show that the Christian belief in the necessity to eradicate the ‘evil’ in children through CP is popular in Cameroon society and Government’s policy to discourage its use is not matched by practice on the ground. Table 6.11 State policy on CP in schools: teachers’ opinions School

Teacher

RW PCAS JA

Opinion on the status of CP in their respective schools x Government is ‘totally against’ the practice of CP in schools. x Only school heads and discipline masters have Government’s permission to execute CP. x The administration gives all staff members the leeway to mete out ‘milder forms of punishment without prejudice’. x Discipline masters are allowed to go about with whips, though encouraged to use them sparingly, ‘as a last resort when the situation is too bad’. x School management in PCAS urges its teachers to respect Government’s decision but several constraints cause teachers to sometimes violate it.16

16 Mr JA mentioned the following constraints that, in his view, justify the practice of CP in PCAS: i) the school is over-populated; large student numbers make it difficult to manage without recourse to CP; ii) the Disciplinary Commission is ineffectual in enforcing discipline; iii) there are not many alternatives to CP e.g. grass-cutting is not possible all the time with only little grass to cut on campus; iv) ‘students themselves are very heady’ and push teachers to extremes when the use of CP becomes inevitable e.g. when they mock and tease teachers in front of classmates, a sign of disrespect; v) the profile of students enrolled in his school makes use of the cane unavoidable. They include: drop-outs from other schools, academic misfits and dismissed cases from other schools, students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, all of whom, to Mr JA, are characteristically stubborn.

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DN JBSS JN

GHS

WL

EM GHS

253

x Government strictly forbids CP in schools. To justify its use, teachers will need to have medical evidence e.g. a doctor’s report to support that a particular student is both physically and mentally fit to withstand it. x The school’s policy is in line with the Government’s and teachers are constantly reminded against its use for disciplinary purposes. x CP is not a common feature of school life in JBSS. x Schools should unconditionally accept state prescriptions on the issue of CP. x The Government is against the practice of CP in schools and is trying to discourage it. x However, CP is still practised in GHS because it is useful in behaviour management despite its negative effects on students. x The school’s internal policy is not completely in line with Government policy; the school tolerates CP to a minimal extent so long as it is in reaction to gross disobedience or when no other form of punishment is deemed suitable. x CP is therefore allowed in ‘mild forms’ e.g. as in beating children on their palms, buttocks, backs, knuckles of fingers.

Teachers’ comments above reveal a number of issues. First of all, it is uncertain whether the Cameroon Government do indeed have the will to outlaw CP in schools. It is self-contradictory and unclear about its own policy - it cannot be ‘totally against’ CP while simultaneously permitting limited use by school administrators. Secondly, there appears to be little or no follow-up action to ensure that policies are well interpreted and that practice is harmonised and consistent across schools. Action to discourage CP is limited to the issuance of ministerial decrees and MINEDUC is not firm in making sure regulations are implemented as they should. Either it has not set up reliable structures to monitor and regulate school practice or those in place are not working properly. Lack of clarity and the absence of regular follow-up only encourage schools and teachers to interpret and execute legislation as they please. We can tell from Table 6.11 that schools do not interpret the ban in the same way. For instance, while both teachers

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in JBSS are unanimous CP is outlawed in schools, hence, make an effort to respect the ban, those in PCAS believe it is tolerated under certain circumstances e.g. if it is carried out with moderation. Following this reasoning, they do not respect Government policies and move completely in the opposite direction. In the same way as opponents of the ban on parent child smacking in the UK question who will decide what constitutes a reasonably mild smack and what does not, teachers in Cameroon find difficulty in determining what constitutes ‘milder forms of CP’ that the State expects them to carry out. Given that not all of them are officially trained in disciplinary procedures regarding disruptive behaviour, giving unclear instructions only gives room for subjective interpretation. We can surely understand why Miss EM:GHS thinks that beating children in the way she describes here is mild: ‘In my school we try as much as possible to minimise it, you know, you can like beat students, you know, on the palms, on the buttocks, on their backs and you can use the rulers on the knuckles of their fingers once in a while since this is mild’. It must be asked who of teachers and students is better placed to tell which form of CP is ‘mild’ and which is not. Students should be well suited to categorise and describe the degree of pain they feel, under the circumstances. Being the victims of beating, it is they and not teachers who should tell where the shoe pinches for it is they who are beaten regularly. The least to be said is that, in principle, the Cameroon Government is against the formalised practice of CP while, in reality, implementation varies across schools. The practice of CP in schools in Cameroon has survived several political and educational changes and proven a capacity to reproduce itself time and again. Reproducing a social cycle of violence While tracing the social and occupational mobility of the ‘Untouchables’, an ethnic minority grouping in Nepal, Prasad-Simkhada (2003) joins Bourdieu & Passeron (1970, 1990) in stating firmly that politicians use the educational system to reproduce a particular class structure in society over time, which is based on social inequality. Prasad-Simkhada’s main contention is that in Nepalese society, certain ethnic groups are prioritised over others and given access to quality education that is a gateway to valued qualifications and careers, economic prestige and high social status. These in themselves are pre-requisites that determine membership in the

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elite class and access to the social benefits this brings. So, the inequality in the social system reproduces itself over and over again. I draw on this theory of social reproduction to argue that the school as an institution is the main means by which the violence and coercion of CP are passed on from one generation to another. For example, the belief that social order can be achieved through the imposition of codes of conduct has remained in most elementary and secondary schools. That is one of the reasons why many school authorities refuse to relinquish their hold on CP despite its negative effects on students’ learning. Some teachers continue to adhere to the biblical preaching according to which you spare the rod, you spoil the child and remain resistant to changes in disciplinary procedures, clinging on to the old values they got so familiar with during their own days at school as pupils. It is as if they are saying: ‘I was a victim myself while at school, my current students are supposed to be my victims now, and they too will make victims of their own students if they become teachers in future. It is in this context that Mr JA:PCAS justified his use of CP in the fact that from his experience as a teacher, he is used to an educational system ‘where the whip is used as a weapon for discipline’. Many students have been convinced into accepting this pattern of coercion and opposition to it is only occasional. For instance, we saw in Chapter 4 (section 4.2.3.4) that Doro:PCAS agreed that Mr JA is right in asking students to kneel on the floor for long periods of time on grounds that they are breaking school rules by speaking PE in class. Clearly this shows the school system as a mechanism through which ideological discourses on CP are transmitted and reproduced. The way teachers and students believe in these means there is little hope the cycle of violence will meet an end soon. Enough was said in Chapter 5 on how CP can affect students’ learning negatively. It suffices to simply re-state here that it is not obvious much learning can occur for a student who, as a victim of CP in class, loses dignity in the midst of classmates. At times, the crudity and bestiality of the assaults some teachers launch against them in the name of CP and reform make it difficult to tolerate its use. It had therefore been suggested long ago that teachers could resort to other measures ‘to enforce discipline and obedience’, some of which have proven effective in many classrooms (see Strawson, 1975). Even in situations where punishing students does work to change their undesirable conduct, it is possible that, at times, such a change is provoked not by a genuine desire to learn (punishment deprives students of learning opportunities e.g. being sent out of class

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while others are studying), but by fear of the physical, emotional and psychological torments associated with CP. Mr JA:PCAS could confirm this. JA: Well, the student …[Clears throat, then excuses himself by saying ‘Excuse me’]…because (…) the student has to feel it psychologically. You know punishment is meant to, to correct, so the student…I believe the student will feel the pain and then, too, will also feel that…the other pain of missing a class. So in this case we have two pains which the student has to feel: the physical pain and then the other pains for errr missing a class.

We are told a positive change in students’ behaviour is due to a) their desire to learn and to avoid missing out on lessons, and b) their desire to avoid being subjected to pain as described above. The group of students who change simply to avoid the daunting effects of punishment have a variety of options to achieve the same ends e.g. Tajong’s 1999 Cameroonbased study on ‘The impact of corporal punishment on the learner’ reported high absentee rates amongst boys in secondary schools, which correlated positively with their teachers’ systematic use of the cane. This suggests that they perceived CP as a counter to the very learning atmosphere it is meant to create. Evidence has been discussed to show that both PE and CP affect the learning process insofar as they interfere with feedback for learning. This is not a problem for the individual student affected but for the society as a whole. The educational system of a country is expected to help students acquire skills, competencies and values that will shape their very existence and progress in society throughout life. If such a system aspires to make them learn from feedback, it would be removing the carpet from underneath their feet by kicking PE out of formal education and letting in CP. Politicians and educationists in Cameroon will have to first of all resolve the questions raised by policies on PE and CP if they intend to address the range of problems affecting feedback for learning.

6.3 Conclusion In this chapter, I examined aspects of the socio-cultural contexts of selected Anglophone Cameroon secondary schools that work as barriers to feedback provision and uptake. These factors determine the existence, survival and success of feedback at the levels of production and reception. This makes it necessary to produce a model of feedback for learning in a way that is radically different from the simplistic behavioural model

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involving only praise and punishment. Students’ learning through assessment is not only facilitated by the presence or absence of praise and punishment. According to this chapter, it is a function of the presence or absence of socio-cultural constraints in the teaching-learning environment. Therefore, the influence of feedback on learning as a substantive area in assessment research cannot and should not be studied in isolation of the contexts in which teaching and learning occur. If it is so studied, one will be addressing only part of a big problem and will certainly not be nipping the problem in the bud.

CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSION

The focus of this book is reporting a multiple case study that investigated qualitatively how six secondary teachers in three schools in Englishspeaking Cameroon provide students with oral and written feedback on their academic work and social conduct, and how these work to promote and not to promote learning. The main findings that emerged from the study can be summarised as follows: x ‘Positive’, ‘negative’ and ‘neutral’ feedback forms teachers deploy affect students’ learning in different ways and learning or not learning depends on how teachers construe and deliver each specific form of feedback in their interaction with students. x The teachers researched have clear ideas about how to report students’ performances, they put much effort in providing a wide variety of feedback forms in their lessons with the intention of helping students learn even though, at times, some of their students do not benefit fully from it. x The teachers are frustrated in their efforts to provide helpful feedback by the low linguistic proficiency levels of some of their students, the very difficult material conditions in which they work, insufficient support from the Cameroon Government in terms of the provision of reference documents to guide pedagogic practice, pre-service training, and policies on Pidgin English and corporal punishment in schools. The implication for studies into classroom assessment feedback is that successful feedback provision, like successful uptake and learning depends on certain aspects of the socio-cultural contexts in which feedback is deployed and taken up e.g. the number of students in a lesson. In this regard, theories on how feedback relates to learning that are based on research conducted in geographical and educational contexts where the maximum class size is 30 may not apply to the Cameroonian situation. Therefore, a major contribution the research reported in this book claims to make to knowledge and to educational research on how assessment

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feedback works is that feedback is constructed, mediated and received as part of a sociocultural process involving a set of factors that, jointly, give it meaning in the substantive sense of the word. The feedback-learning relationship cannot be usefully construed independently of the contexts in which it occurs. As far as Cameroonian education is concerned, I have directed attention to teachers’ feedback practice and its relation to learning, an issue that has so far been neglected by Cameroonian researchers, and to how important it is as a subject of inquiry and as a means through which teachers in Cameroon can be made to reflect on their own classroom practice. Also, through the socio-cultural approach, this book has shown the relevance of context in shaping teaching and learning processes in schools; this means that when evaluating how successful teaching and learning are in order to determine how much extra human, material and financial resources should be mobilised for improvement, policy makers in Cameroon and other countries worldwide will not look only at what goes on inside the classroom, but also what obtains in the wider social and cultural contexts that have a strong influence on classroom life. In keeping with the main objective of the research, namely, to use findings on the perceived relationship between feedback and learning to suggest ways of enhancing feedback systems and promote good feedback practice in classrooms, I now propose recommendations on how problems identified in the schools studied can be resolved. The suggestions will focus on classroom practice with regard to feedback provision and on teacher training.

7.1 Recommendations and perspectives for better feedback practice 7.1.1 On classroom practice In 2004, Kellaghan & Greeney bemoaned the quality of teacher assessment practices in Sub-Saharan Africa for a number of reasons: use of poorly developed tests and exams, predominance of the use of questions that require recalling of factual knowledge, lack of procedures designed to access higher-order thinking skills, large class sizes, limited access to learning and teaching materials, poor facilities, poorly qualified teachers, limited training and capacity development opportunities, and limited support from district or Ministry officials. Chapters 4 and 5 of this book reported many examples of helpful feedback practices observed in Cameroonian secondary schools which means the teachers should be given

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some credit for the work they are doing under the difficult circumstances mentioned in chapter 6. However, I also highlighted cases where had feedback been deployed differently, students would, perhaps, have benefited more from it. Research has to respond with information about how to address these issues. Research carried out in the UK by the Assessment Reform Group provides us with a valuable example of how academic research has been translated into practice and adopted by schools nationwide. It is hoped the findings and recommendations in this book will have a similar effect. It should be clear that the recommendations below are not intended as prescriptive rules of feedback conduct; neither are they expected to apply with equal measure to every teacher I studied. Certainly, they are expected to be most beneficial to teachers who do not yet identify themselves with feedback practices likely to promote learning. The proposals, some of which are drawn from the works of other researchers and from a few students and teachers I interviewed, are treated in five subheadings: the first emphasises the necessity for teachers to provide feedback orally and in writing given the crucial role it plays in students’ learning; I also suggest important ways in which teachers can provide feedback appropriately, and particular feedback practices to be encouraged or discouraged in classrooms due to their potential to respectively facilitate or impede learning. For ease of understanding and application, the proposals are explained in point form. 7.1.1.1 Feedback presence in teacher talk/writing x Since children need to know whether their work or conduct is acceptable or not, ignoring a student’s academic contribution and carrying on with another aspect of the lesson leaves them with no feedback. Rather than simply hushing students down when they go wrong in their conduct or in response to a question, it helps to let them know what they were expected to do. Doro:PCAS remarked: ‘Well, to me, the only advice I can give to the teacher is that if a student stands…a student is asked a question and he stands and offers a wrong answer, at least the teacher should correct him or her…Some of them do not do that; when one gives a wrong answer to a question, they simply say, ‘Sit down’, which is not correct’ (My translation). x When I pointed out to Carl:JBSS that some of the samples of written work he gave me to analyse had not been marked, he said: ‘We never take the work to our teacher but the teacher also never asks for it’. It could be helpful in this guise if students are reminded to hand in work for marking when they fail to do so themselves.

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x Withholding students’ results does not help them improve on areas of weakness, nor does it give reassurances that they understood previous concepts before moving on to new ones. Laura:GHS noted: ‘When the period is over by 5 minutes they’ll (i.e. students) start provocating: ‘Time over, time over’. They don’t like the teacher because the teacher don’t explain well or the teacher don’t correct notes or after the exams the teacher don’t give papers to see how they have performed in that test to work harder in the other test. The teacher don’t correct their test work. Some student are very angry’. 7.1.1.2 Providing feedback appropriately x It is less professional to give positive feedback e.g. pass marks to undeserving students as this may re-inforce the wrong types of behaviour in them. Laura:GHS remarked: ‘I don’t like the idea. I think teachers should always put the right marks which is there. Some students go around giving teachers money to give them some marks which they don’t deserve’. x If merits take the form of bonus marks, these may not in the end reflect students’ ability to demonstrate the skills, competences and knowledge that were tested. So, perhaps it would be more helpful to give students the actual marks they earn without adding or reducing as a congratulatory or punitive gesture. x To avoid disharmony and conflict of opinions it is advisable to make clear, whenever possible during lessons, what each feedback intention is so students can understand exactly how they are expected to interpret and react to each oral and written feedback form you provide. Only through the establishment of common ground in conception, perception and comprehension will feedback be recognised as such by both teachers and students when it occurs in classrooms. x We saw in chapters 4 and 5 that accepting a student’s response to an open-ended question with finality closes opportunities for further reflection on the question asked. It is desirable in such situations to give room for others to try out their ideas. x It is important as well to provide feedback comprehensibly, addressing both academic work and conduct since both count for students’ learning in school. x The UK Assessment Reform Group (2002) has warned teachers to be aware of the impact that marks, comments and grades have on learners’ confidence and enthusiasm and to be constructive as possible in the feedback they give.

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x The greatest motivational benefits of feedback arise from focussing feedback on the quality of a child’s work, not in comparison to others, specific ways in which work should be improved, improvements made compared to his or her earlier work (Clarke, 2009:52). x When reporting feedback via comments, what is important is the quality of comments given, that is, one which provides students with guidance on how to improve, as well as opportunities and support to understand how to make improvement, not just ‘Very good’ (Clarke, 2009:34). 7.1.1.3 Feedback practices to encourage x To Black & Wiliam (2003:629), ‘Improving the quality of formative assessment would raise standards of achievement in schools (…) it follows logically that improving the quality of formative feedback would further increase standards of attainment’. x Organising classroom teaching in constructivist terms e.g. with substantial teacher-pupil interactions and peer group work would mean feedback can be jointly constructed. x Williams (1997:5) has advised against ‘phrasing feedback in technical jargon that is yet to be explained to students’. Teachers could provide feedback in a language students can understand and re-explain in normal rhetoric when feedback is expressed metaphorically. x ‘Many teachers remark - and research shows – that for most lessons, instant feedback seems more appropriate than reflective feedback. Specific skills, knowledge or concepts need instant feedback during lessons, or children can reach the end of the lesson feeling frustrated and having wasted learning time’ (Clarke 2009:22). x It is a useful educational exercise to canvas students’ opinions about prescriptive rules they think are necessary for life at school, and about what sanctions or punishments will ensure that they actually obey them (Wilson, 2002:413). x It is also useful to use other forms of punishment whenever possible; some children only need an eyebrow raised, speaking crossly to, being shamed for them to deter from unwanted behaviour. Others need simple detention, deprivation of something they enjoy, or engaging them in serious tasks. x As Hattie (2001) explains, effective feedback should have meaningful effects on criterion performance; feedback is effective not only when it contains information about success or failure in specific tasks but, more importantly, information on how to succeed. Therefore, students

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should be encouraged to ask the question ‘What do I do next?’ so they can take steps necessary to enable them meet learning goals. x Feedback types that cause reflection; that give students room to activate their cognitive processes and to ponder on tasks set and on their learning would need to be encouraged. ‘A case in point is that we have each been asked several times by teachers, ‘what makes for good feedback?’-a question to which, at first, we had no good answer. Over the course of two or three years, we have evolved a simple answer – good feedback causes thinking (Black & Wiliam, 2003:631). 7.1.1.4 Feedback Practices to avoid x Though reading out in public scores earned in ascending or descending order of merit might be intended to get weaker students to work harder, some may be discouraged even more, feeling low in self-esteem and in ability to compete with the more capable. Vally:PCAS remarked: ‘At times in class, teachers come with their papers, they begin calling from the highest students who performed well in class right down to the least’. x It could be helpful to avoid negative derogatory remarks of the sort ‘You are dull’, if a student is unable to provide an expected response to a question or if what he or she offers only partially resembles what was expected. It also helps not to get too emotional and over react when students’ performances fall far below expectations e.g. throwing their scripts at them, refusing to do corrections; this might inflame an already precarious situation even more. According to Laura:GHS, ‘if the highest person has 10 or 9 the teacher will just come in class and throw the papers on the floor that this is not good, that they should try to work on your own; some teachers don’t give you corrections, some just come and abandon the papers and then they go’. x In the same vein, ridiculing and humiliating children in public when they underachieve in a test e.g. reading out their marks provocatively as to generate laughter from peers may, at times, work against learning. Laura again complained: ‘They can just come to the class and they read somebody’s name and then they will read what the child has wrote on the paper and then children will laugh at the child. The child will be so angry, the child will be so sad on that day, which is not good…When they react very badly I think that will make me to, to not answer questions again in class because you’ll just feel shy when your friends laugh at you’.

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x Provoking students by word of mouth or writing when they submit work of poor quality e.g. drawing symbols on their answer sheets that depict mediocrity may affect some of them negatively. Carl:JBSS remarked: ‘When you have failed mark they just draw a round circle, put your eyes, put your ears that that’s very bad. They don’t even try to say, ‘Try next time’, they just write, ‘This is not good, this is bad’. At least try to encourage the child to, to read more hard in the next test, make the child to know that even if I fail in this one I’ll try in the other one’. x Getting students who fail to bring their textbooks to class to sit and work with others in pairs and groups is more helpful if the intention is to make them participate in lessons and to learn; asking them to kneel in class as punishment is likely to distract their attention from learning activities. x ‘Just as negative feelings get in the way of improving performance, so do positive feelings facilitate learning’ (Devos-Binder, 1993, quoted in Quible, 1997:111). When students underperform, Miss EM’s reaction contained in the following quote could be more appropriate: ‘I try as much as possible not to use very negative reinforcement terms. For example, somebody who scores a 5 on 10, you know, I could write ‘Can do better’ and somebody who scores something like a 4 or a 3 I say, ‘A little more effort will get you there’. It’s not like I’m aiming at mediocrity but just the idea that I’m not discouraging the students, OK.’ x Providing too few remarks when giving written feedback would be unsuitable, especially when the need to provide detailed formative comments is strong. ‘One-word comments are less helpful to students than comments with more information’ (Quible, 1997:112). x Unfortunately, teachers all too often concentrate their marking efforts on what is easier to assess, rather than on what has the greater educative value for the child. For example, many teachers spend time correcting spelling, punctuation and grammar rather than focussing directly on aspects of their students’ knowledge and understanding of the curriculum subject. Too much time spent assessing presentation and neatness, rather than on the subject itself, is also misdirected (Butt, 2010:66). The next set of recommendations for better feedback practice focus on teacher training.

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7.1.2 On teacher education and training 7.1.2.1 The need for training of secondary teachers in Cameroon Sayed & Kanjee (2013:379) have observed, and rightly so, that ‘the successful application of Assessment for Learning approaches in practice calls for highly qualified and trained teachers working in conducive environments. Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa advocate for the implementation of an AfL approach in the classroom. However, limited information and support is provided for how this should be attained in practice’. Teachers have been vested with authority to supervise and assess work their students produce and they have to be trained to carry out these tasks satisfactorily. Research studies have indicated that teachers trained in supervisory skills provide significantly more effective feedback than those who have not received training (Wilkins-Canter, 1992:237). This finding should be useful to Cameroonian educators because, apparently, less than 20% of teachers in the private sector have gone through initial training courses. Lewin & Stuart (2003:692) have argued that ‘substantial resources allocated to initial training could enhance the quality of teaching and student achievement’. A desirable pre-requisite for successful feedback practice, then, would be i) for the Cameroon Government via MINEDUC to create more training colleges for secondary teachers, some of whom upon graduation, should be able to work in the private sector. Otherwise, they should assist church and privately-owned schools financially to create and run their own training institutions; ii) comprehensive teacher education in principles and modalities for assessment and reporting. Several arguments have been put forward to make the case for teachers’ professional training. Furlong and his colleagues (2000:1), for instance, argue persuasively that the ‘knowledgebased skills’, i.e. technical and specialist knowledge that professionals like lawyers, medics, teachers have which is beyond the reach of lay people, are developed following long periods of training.1 1

Lewin & Stuart (2003:701), reporting findings on teacher education in ‘lowincome countries’ in Africa and the Caribbean concluded that most Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) valued their training for various reasons: it appears to boost their confidence on the job, raise their awareness and provide them with a new discourse – the ‘talk of teachers’. They gained knowledge of curriculum content, of a range of teaching methods, and also acquired skills in lesson planning, record-keeping, managing resources, keeping time that enabled them to fit into school routines. Finally, they learnt to develop their own materials like teaching aids and notes. They certainly also acquired techniques of assessment and feedback provision that they found useful in their classrooms. As Lewin & Stuart

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I would like to argue for an integrated approach to teacher education involving both pre-service and in-service training. To be able to provide feedback effectively, every Cameroonian secondary teacher would need to be provided with knowledge of useful feedback strategies prior to getting into the field and further support while there. Pre-service training The value of pre-service training cannot and should not be underestimated. De Luca et al recent study of 48 ‘teacher candidates’, that is, student teachers on a teacher education programme in Florida tells us why. Having examined the effects of the training on teachers’ subsequent judgement on students’ learning, they found ‘changes in teachers’ confidence in assessment as a foundation for promoting valid judgements on student learning’. The majority of teachers expanded their concept of assessment from one based solely on testing to one that recognised multiple forms of assessment that serve varying purposes. Teachers also demonstrated greater confidence in practical assessment approaches. De Luca et al therefore conclude that pre-service education has a critical role to play in promoting assessment literacy in beginning teachers and providing a foundation for teachers’ continued learning about assessment throughout their career (2013:48). In Cameroon, initial teacher training programmes exist for the privileged few that undergo professional education, but like in most African societies, these are based on models developed and left behind by former colonial powers (See Dioh:1991). Quite often, attempts are made to copy new approaches from western countries and modernize existing programmes but are too often limited to slavish borrowing without subsequent adaptations to reflect the demands of training in African contexts. For instance, following the example of western societies like the UK and in keeping with a commitment to realise ‘Education for All’ made at Dakar, Senegal (according to UNESCO, 2002), the Cameroon Government recently decreed that primary education should be free and compulsory to all children of school-going age. This has resulted in increases in enrolments in many regions of the country but without a corresponding increase in the number of trained teachers, or renewed emphasis on appropriate techniques to cope with large student numbers. ‘Where costs are high and the supply of new teachers is well below the level needed to achieve universal enrolment at sensible teacher-pupil ratios, new thinking concluded, ‘training at its best lays a foundation on which to build’.

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is needed about how to train teachers (Lewin & Stuart, 2003:13). One would therefore expect MINEDUC to make bigger budgetary allocations to fund the construction of additional schools to accommodate surpluses of children, if current class sizes are to be substantially reduced to attain more reasonable teacher-student ratios. We know from Blatchford (2004) that class size affects academic achievement and such classroom processes as individual support for reading, classroom management and control, and teacher task-time with pupils. Pedder (2001) refers extensively to research showing very clearly the directions of some of these effects e.g. ‘Smaller class sizes result in more opportunities for teachers to individualise their teaching’ (Pate-Bain & al, 1992); ‘Potential discipline problems are diffused more quickly in smaller classes’ (PateBain & Achilles, 1986); ‘Teacher workload and stress increase with larger classes’ (Clarke, 1981); ‘Reduced class sizes can be expected to produce increased academic achievement’ (Glass & Smith, 1978). Therefore, if initial teacher education is to succeed in helping teachers overcome the constraints to effective feedback practice, it must be designed to match with practical realities of classroom life in secondary schools. This way, teachers will be trained for schools as they are in reality, rather than for schools as teacher educators would idealise them to be. Pre-service training in Cameroon, as of necessity, should aspire to some or all of the following objectives: x Train teachers to cope with difficult working conditions that affect feedback practice e.g. heavy workloads and tight timescales; x Provide teachers with strategies to handle large student numbers e.g. with techniques of giving group-focused feedback, organizing peer assessment and feedback, organizing collaborative learning activities; x Make special provision in teacher education curricula for coping with students from a multilingual environment where PE-SE code switching is likely to be common; x Train teachers in effective ways of handling disruptive behaviour and cases of mediocrity in academic work, without resorting to corporal punishment. x Train teachers to recognize and appreciate the centrality of feedback in students’ learning and to develop a culture of feedback for learning in their teaching; x Help teachers to interpret Government legislation on CP and to respect it in their various classrooms. This of course means there should be

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very firm and clearly written legislation on CP made available to every teacher, with accompanying information on sanctions to be meted out to those who disregard it. Teacher education should be both pre-service and in-service to minimize the likelihood of ‘an uneasy mixture of theoretical prescription and trial and error practice’, which still occurs when pre-service training has taken place (Brown & McIntyre, 1993:13).

In-service training After initial teacher training, Newly Qualified Teachers need periodic guidance and support from experienced professionals to cope with the demands of the profession. In Cameroon, the continuous professional development of teachers is entrusted primarily to National, and at local level, Provincial Pedagogic Inspectors (PPIs). Due to administrative bottlenecks, most PPIs find little time to organize training seminars and workshops and when they do, these are attended predominantly by staff from state-owned schools. Either publicity for such events is low-scale or PPIs would typically expect a formal invitation from schools in the private sector to whom, supposedly, they do not owe any direct responsibility. For these reasons and many others, practising teachers are given opportunities to talk about their experience in the field only occasionally. A number of suggestions could be helpful in improving the current situation. First of all, school heads could, as often as possible, remind PPIs of the need to orient new beginning teachers, and could invite them to conduct training seminars, workshops, open-days and other such discussion forums where professionals and new-comers to the scene can exchange ideas. Experts will use these occasions to give advice on how to deal with the challenges the profession presents. School heads can also urge Government to employ trained advisers to assist with the kind of on-thejob training that PPIs are not always available to provide, in order to avoid isolating beginning teachers. Advisers can help such teachers to interpret and understand government policy on assessment and reporting. Their presence in schools will mean school heads will ensure beforehand that their schools and teachers are provided with the working document. Advisers will now make certain that it is in a language each teacher can read and understand best to be able to apply policies correctly, that it covers all relevant assessment and feedback issues very clearly, and explains in detail what is to be done at each level of the assessment and feedback processes.

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As Brown & McIntyre (1993:113) assert, there is a vast reservoir of experienced teachers’ sophisticated professional craft knowledge accessible to novice teachers, yet remaining untapped; ‘Experienced teachers are analogous to ‘master craftsmen’. One can learn a lot by gaining access to the ‘craft knowledge’ of experienced teachers’ (op.cit., p.12). It would be useful, therefore, for school management in Cameroon to also encourage cooperation and the sharing of information and expertise on best practice between less experienced teachers and more experienced ones who have a proven record of professional excellence. Within the framework of craftsman-novice cooperation, school heads should encourage teachers within subject specialisms to observe each others’ classes, discuss strengths and weaknesses with each other and, if further insights are required, with the head teacher. A further desirable pre-requisite would be for the school administration to encourage action research endeavours among teaching staff who should conduct small-scale investigations into various aspects of their feedback practice. Teachers are better placed to understand the realities of their individual classrooms and the knowledge they generate themselves about good feedback practice is no less important. Hargreaves believes research should not be the only source of knowledge for practising teachers: ‘Teachers also have to engage in a conscious process of knowledge creation, albeit of a different kind, and possibly relevant only in the settings in which they work (Hargreaves, 1999). Dialogue should also be encouraged between teachers and researchers so that the former can talk about their own findings on their feedback practices and difficulties they face with the action research they carry out. As reported in Chapter 4, my contact with secondary teachers in Cameroon raised their awareness and understanding of feedback practice in their classrooms. In this respect Government should recognize and support the work of researchers and others who have the credentials, if not the right, to comment upon good feedback practice, or at least present opinions about it. Some of the recommendations for good feedback practice to be made in this section are beyond the competence of the classroom teacher or his administrative head, and will need action from policy makers at national level.

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7.1.3 On language policy It was said in the preceding chapter that government legislation in Cameroon does not allow the use of PE in formal education. Having illustrated how this works against feedback for learning, I believe Government could review its national language policy to allow for limited use of Pidgin English in interpersonal communication in classrooms. Many Cameroonian parents, and politicians in particular, will disapprove of this proposal. Mindful of this, I will explain in a bit more detail why I consider it important, how it is expected to work and implications it will have. 7.1.3.1 Make PE a language of communication in secondary schools The issue is not whether PE should be taken seriously into account in educational planning in Cameroon, but whether Cameroonians can afford not to take it seriously in one way or another. If the aim of educationalists and language planners in the country is to have language learning and language-mediated feedback designed for students rather than in spite of them, then one way of helping students understand the feedback they are given in SE in which they are not very proficient is by explaining it in PE in which they are more proficient and which they use with greater confidence. Of all the teachers I interviewed on their opinions about PE, only Miss EM:GHS:Eng had a more tolerant position on its use by students. She gave ownership of the language to them and recognised it as serving a useful social function for them away from the school setting. KT: Do you find anything wrong with these students speaking in Pidgin English? EM: No, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s their language; it’s like their mother tongue because errr when they move around with friends the lang…the language in which they feel more comfortable expressing (…) their ideas is Pidgin.

This means the use of PE by students is an ‘act of identity’; TabouretKeller & LePage (1985) noted that ‘with every speech act all individuals perform to a greater or lesser extent, an ‘act of identity’, revealing through their personal use of language their sense of social and ethnic solidarity or difference’. Like physical features, provenance, race, colour, nationality, religion, and culture, language is a symbol of identity and PE is the language the students Miss EM alludes to use to identify with one another as people having the same identity and belonging to the same social group.

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By banning it from their discourse, the Government is slowing down the development of a cultural identity in its own citizens. Also, given students’ confidence in the use of PE, introducing its use in lessons will ease communication and oral participation in class. Many students will be able to express themselves easily in PE that they are already familiar with and that the bulk of them are naturally more eloquent and fluent in. For instance, the use of PE will likely increase the rate at which they volunteer to ask and answer questions as much as self-confidence in their linguistic expression. How then can the proposal work and what effects would it have? x Where possible during lessons, teachers could make use of PE to explain feedback that students may not apprehend when mediated in SE. Teachers could also correct students whenever they mix up SE and PE words and expressions in their oral and written productions. x Students should be made aware of the structural differences between PE and SE at all linguistic levels, since interference reflects poor knowledge of these. As Todd explains, by failing to teach ‘an awareness of the differing patterning of Pidgin and English’, an educational system would be ignoring the influence of PE on the phonology, lexis and syntax of SE and giving children less than what they deserve (1984a:169). x Campaigns to promote awareness of language diversity will also be helpful to make teachers, students and others in the community become sensitive to their own prejudices against non-standard varieties and of the range of varieties that co-exist in other societies. The main challenges to the proposal could be the following: teachers will have to know the differences between SE and PE to be able to spot cases of negative interference in students’ utterances and to isolate other varieties of PE currently emerging in Cameroon (see Todd, 2003 – online); so teachers who are unable to do this will have to be trained and this might require huge financial costs. In addition, it may be difficult for some people to wipe out from their minds the conception that PE is inferior compared to SE. According to Todd (1984a:169), most Cameroonians would not accept the use of PE in schools – they feel that it would be educationally limiting compared to SE that offers more possibilities of educational and social advancements given its international status. We can tell from teachers’ and students’ perceptions of PE in Chapter 6 that the situation Todd described thirty years ago has not changed a great deal. This notwithstanding, Todd (2003 – online) asserts that children in

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Cameroon, nowadays, hear a great deal of PE on radio and television and have been exposed to PE for a long time, especially in Roman Catholic churches. This is enough indication that many in authority have recognised that the language has great value in the country. Besides, the call made in this section is for limited (not exclusive) use of PE in the school environment and for the purpose of facilitating students’ comprehension of lessons only. If the Cameroon Government allows PE to be used in the audiovisual media and in churches, it is because it is convinced not all sections of the society have access to information broadcast only in Standard English and French and that there has been no overt opposition to government action in this area suggests many Cameroonians welcome it.

7.2 Limitations to the study and prospects for further research This book necessarily provides a mere snapshot of teachers’ feedback practice as it relates to student learning. The research reported has attempted to raise crucial issues related to both oral and written feedback that constitute huge areas of study in their own right; it is obvious that I have not reached the bottom of possible explorations that can be made of the issues investigated. For example, the exclusion of gestural feedback from the study means descriptions made of teachers’ classroom practice did not consider the several ways in which meanings and intentions of feedback are transmitted through gestures. Clarke (2009:50) for instance, states that teachers approve of pupil responses to questions by nodding, smiling, maintaining eye contact, laughing, putting an arm around or patting pupils on the back; similarly, they show disapproval by pulling faces, staring hard, clicking their fingers and making disapproving noises, gestures which are extremely difficult to quantify or code. There is cursory reference to gestural feedback in analysis wherein teachers and students appeared to explain praise as a form of clapping which students are invited to do. However, many research studies into rates of approval and disapproval in classroom e.g. Russel & Lin (1977), Rutter et al (1979), Merrett & Wheldall (1986) broadened their definition of teacher reactions to include non-verbal responses and this seems to have yielded a more comprehensive account of the classroom realities they studied, though this also means they could not treat any of these in as much detail as have been treated in this book. The way in which I relied on teachers’ and students’ accounts of the perceived role of each of ‘positive’, ‘negative’ and ‘neutral’ feedback

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forms in learning, allowed me to count more on cumulative evidence than on proven fact to make claims about the likelihood of one form more than another, to serve learning better. Though I also drew on alternative evidence (e.g. observational data on how students responded to different feedback forms deployed during lessons, marks they obtained in relevant subject areas as indicators of learning), this seems to be insufficient. If I were able to collect samples of written work on a regular basis, it would have been possible to also determine whether the written feedback students received on a given piece of work affected their performance and learning on work that was set the following week. Further, an intervention (quantitative) study would be necessary in future to determine how particular feedback types correlate with student academic attainment in English, Geography and Chemistry. An altogether different research design would, however, be required in this case. Given its limited scope and focus on the Cameroonian situation only, it is important to recognise the limits of the generalisability of the findings and proposals made there from. The recommendations do not pretend to explain fully all misunderstood or unknown facts (or answer all burning questions) regarding the relationship between feedback and learning. Any suggestions for enhancing and refining the arguments in the light of future developments in classroom feedback practice would be welcome. It is hoped, nonetheless, that useful insights have been provided to add up to our understanding of how feedback works for learning in secondary schools, and that this book will contribute immensely to education and educational research worldwide. It is also hoped that lessons will be learnt as much by students and educationists whose teaching-learning contexts are dissimilar to the Cameroonian situation, both in the type of contextual constraints present in secondary schools and in the way these affect the feedback-learning relationship. For instance, through this book, renewed emphasis has been placed, equally, on language issues of wider significance that can be useful to other communities as well e.g. intercomprehensibility in more than one language is an important factor recognised at international level. The Common European Framework set up by the Council of Europe (see Council of Europe, 2001) has stressed the need for people from different cultures living and interacting in the same geographical, linguistic and educational environment to understand the language (s) they address to one another. The findings of my research pertaining to inadequacies in students’ proficiency levels in the language in which they are taught and the resultant consequences on their receptivity to feedback can be useful to researchers, educators and students

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in the United Kingdom and wider Europe, the United States of America, South Africa to name only a few where, at the moment, some secondary schools are multilingual and multicultural in in-take. To take the UK example, some students (especially the non-British) are less proficient in English compared to their British peers, and differences in the way they understand teachers’ lectures and feedback statements mediated in English may be affecting their academic achievement. Many, hopefully, will soon recognise that this issue is ripe for investigation because now that the European Union has opened its doors wider, a good number of secondary students from non-English-speaking countries have accompanied their parents moving to the UK to look for work. This means there remains significant scope for the kind of work I have undertaken and discussed in this book to be pursued, not merely with teachers and students in different social and geographical contexts, but also in terms of cross-cultural and intercultural studies on language pedagogy.

APPENDIX 1 OPERATIONAL RULES FOR CODING TEACHER UTTERANCES: DEFINITION OF VARIABLES AND CATEGORIES

VARIABLES A: Feedback on academic performance Refers to any category of feedback that is related to pupils’ demonstrated understanding and performance of purely academic tasks. This may be work previously done or an on-going task, oral or written which is the object of teachers’ assessment and subsequent reporting of assessment outcomes. Examples include feedback on intellectual ability reflected, for example, in written tasks, ability to do things practically, things that involve transfer of knowledge acquired, ability to satisfactorily perform academic tasks like solving mathematical problems in class, doing homework and classroom exercises well, answering questions satisfactorily. B: Feedback on social behaviour Refers to any category of feedback that is not related to pupils’ understanding or performance of academic tasks. It is related to pupils’ previous or on-going social behaviour that is not normally the object of formal assessment. Examples include: - pupils’ respect or not of rules governing classroom behaviour. - pupils’ respect or not of rules governing school behaviour. - pupils’ respect or not of conventional codes of conduct in society. - pupils’ attitudes and motivation towards learning and school.

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CATEGORIES Teacher response Refers to any utterance that involves verbal exchange between a teacher and a pupil. The interaction is multidirectional. The teacher’s utterance is in reaction to discourse or action initiated by pupils. For example, a question asked, a statement or action made that requires the teacher’s reaction. The emphasis however, is not on the originator of the discourses in any interaction (it could be a teacher or pupil), but on the initiator of the particular utterance or action on which feedback is provided, namely, the pupil. 1. Flat acceptance Refers to teacher reactions that positively evaluate and fully accept the validity or relevance of a pupil’s performance or academic contribution offered in response to a teacher’s question, or as a volunteered statement, or as part of a task work. There is evidence that the pupil’s response is complete or adequate, no further information is required for its adequacy. Examples include: Yes; That’s right; Correct; I agree (with you); O.K.; You’re totally correct; Yeah, exactly. 2. Partial acceptance Refers to teacher reactions that positively evaluate and partially accept the validity or relevance of a pupil’s performance or academic contribution offered in response to a teacher’s question, or as a volunteered statement, or as part of a task work. There is evidence that the pupil’s response is incomplete or inadequate and additional information is required for it to be complete. Illustrations will be: - Yes, but your answer is not complete. - O.K. I agree with you but not entirely. - That’s right, but could you add something to your response? 3. Probe Refers to teacher utterances that stimulate, or otherwise challenge a pupil to extend or elaborate their response by requesting further explanation and clarification from a pupil with the aim of obtaining a more correct, more accurate or more adequate pupil response. For instance, such statements as:

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- Explain your answer, Tom. - Go on a little further, Marie. - What do you mean by that? - Justify your answer. 4. Clue Teacher reactions (follow-up questions or statements) in response to pupil contributions that stimulate, or otherwise guide a pupil towards a particular response considered by the teacher to be appropriate or desirable. The teacher offers clues, leading statements or questions to guide pupil recall or support pupil reasoning toward a more adequate answer. For example, mentioning some key words or phrases, introducing a response pattern that could be picked up and completed by the pupil. 5. Encouragement Refers to teacher utterances that are meant to boost pupils’ morale for attempting an answer even though their contribution is wrong e.g. Don’t worry, Tom, that was a good attempt. 6. Categorical refusal Refers to teacher reactions that negatively evaluate or reject the validity or relevance of a pupil’s performance or academic contribution offered in response to a teacher’s question, or as a volunteered statement, or as part of a task work. The teacher offers no further opportunity for the pupil to correct him or herself or try another response. Commonly, such utterances would be in the form of statements bearing finality in them, like: No; Not correct; I’m afraid you’re wrong; Wrong; Absolutely not; I don’t think so. It may also take the form of teachers repeating the incorrect answer in a loud tone. 7. Refusal/Repeat Code when teacher utterances that negatively evaluate or reject the validity or relevance of a pupil’s performance or academic contribution offered in response to a teacher’s question, or as a volunteered statement, or as part of a task work. The teacher offers one or multiple further opportunities for pupil self-correction. Commonly, the teacher simply asks for another

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response or does not divert attention from the pupil but looks at him/her continuously and expectantly. TEACHER INITIATION / RESPONSE Refers to linguistic exchanges between teachers and pupils initiated by either party. It also refers to utterances started or initiated by the teacher where communication tends to be more unidirectional, going from teacher to pupil. The latter is more passive and receptive in the communicative process. However, feedback is not provided in a void, it is in reaction to the pupil’s previous behaviour, say, out of class, out of school, or during earlier lessons. 8. Simple praise Refers to teacher utterances that positively evaluate or appreciate and commend a pupil’s previous or on-going performance or behaviour, with a view to reinforcing the re-occurrence of such behaviour. This takes the form of simple words or sentences and value judgements. Examples include: Good; Good lad/girl; Very good; Well done; Excellent; Brilliant; Great; Perfect; Smashy. 9. Extended praise Refers to all utterances in which the teacher positively evaluates or appreciates and commends a pupil’s previous or on-going performance or behaviour, with a view to reinforcing the re-occurrence of such behaviour. This takes the form of longer statements and near-exaggerated comments. For instance: - I’m very much satisfied with your work, Alice. - Jane, keep up with that spirit. - Oh! That’s really wonderful, Nick, I’m sure you’ll go places. - Pat’s work is exceptionally good. I hope the others will copy her example. 10. Reward Refers to all material things or other such symbolic benefits a teacher provides or verbally promises a pupil in exchange for good behaviour or good academic work. Examples of reward include pass marks (scores),

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grades, and credits given to written work or promised in exchange for an appreciated or accepted pupil response to a teacher’s question or pupil volunteered statement. It may also take the form of prizes and rewards offered or promised. 11. Direct correction Teacher reacts to no response from a pupil to teacher’s question, or after rejecting the pupil’s response, by providing the desired or appropriate response him/herself. It could be a simple statement or a blackboard demonstration of the expected answer. 12. Indirect correction Teacher reacts to no response from a pupil to a teacher’s question, or after rejecting the pupil’s response, by asking the same question to another pupil designated by the teacher, or to a group of pupils, or otherwise indicating that any pupil in the class should volunteer an answer. Illustrations include: - Who wants to help Marc? - Who knows the correct answer? - Paul, could you please help your friend and give us the answer? 13. Advice Refers to any utterance in which a teacher works collaboratively with a student to identify an error in a pupil’s response or behaviour; he explains why it is an error and they both negotiate how the student should perform a given task or how he should behave so as to achieve desired performance standards. This may be in the form of simple statements on techniques of tackling and solving problems or extended counselling on proper behaviour. In the process, the teacher takes on board the students’ own views and suggestions on how to put errors right. 14. Criticism Teacher utterance, a follow-up response or otherwise to a pupil’s academic contribution or moral/social behaviour, that expresses dissatisfaction with such contribution and behaviour. Such utterances have the potential to

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subsequently modify pupil behaviour but also to discourage pupil effort at doing better. Examples will include the following: -Eric, you’re no good at Maths. -Paul, I’m not sure (I doubt if) you’ll be able to pass your examinations. - Jessie, I don’t like the way you talk in class. 15. Punishment Code when any utterance or act in which a teacher expresses disapproval with a pupil’s work or behaviour, then causes the pupil to be sorry for such undesirable behaviour or performance and to suffer consequences for it. Examples of punishment will be asking the pupil to leave the class, to stay in class at break time while others go out, to stay out of lessons for a given period of days, or to do extra homework. 16. Warning / Threat Code all utterances in which a teacher makes a pupil aware of the possible danger of continuing with an undesirable behaviour and performance, and where there is indication that something unpleasant will happen unless a particular more desirable action is followed by the pupil. For instance, utterances like: - Mary, if you keep having such poor marks you might be dismissed. - Listen, if you don’t behave yourselves properly, I’ll send you out of class. - Those who fail to do their homework will not be allowed to join the rest for the excursion. 17 No Explicit Feedback The teacher’s utterance is coded for ‘no explicit feedback’ when s/he simply does not respond to the pupil following the latter’s answer, or if s/he gives a verbal response that does not communicate information about the correctness or incorrectness of the pupil’s answer. Illustrations include: You think your answer is correct?, I don’t know if you are right or wrong.

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18. Unidentified Refers to any interaction or instance of teacher behaviour unaccommodated by the observation schedule, that is, a category not represented on the schedule. AUDIENCE 19. Individual Code when feedback is provoked by an individual pupil who may be part of a group or of the whole class. The individual pupil is the sole focus of the teacher’s attention and the only one in observable verbal interaction with the teacher. 20. Group Code when teacher feedback reactions are provoked by a group of two or more pupils such that they are the focus of the teacher’s attention and are the only ones in observable verbal interaction with the teacher when feedback is provided. 21. Class Code when teacher feedback reactions are triggered by a pupil, a group or the entire class with no specific individual or group being the focus of teacher attention. There is evidence the whole class is in direct verbal conversation with the teacher even if only some individuals speak at a time. 22. Undetermined Refers to any utterance or instance of teacher behaviour that could not be attributed solely to an individual, group or class, or otherwise the audience of which could not be determined. TIME INTERVALS Refers to a moment in time during which a teacher’s utterance occurs. Each box represents ten minutes of observation time, so each observation session lasts a maximum of sixty minutes depending on how much time a teacher has available for his lesson.

APPENDIX 2 TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS FOR INTERVIEWS AND OBSERVATIONAL RECORDINGS

1. I opted for an alphabetic rather than an acoustic transcription. The former is more familiar and accessible to a wider audience. There was need to choose a convention that is understandable by all readers of Standard English language, including native and non-native speakers of this language who do not have a linguistic training to be able to interpret phonetic transcriptions. 2. I used punctuation rules in Standard English, namely, rules governing the use of capitalisation, commas, full stops, colons, semi-colons, hyphens, interjections, question marks, quotation signs, parentheses, etc to render interviewee statements readable and comprehensible to an Englishspeaking audience. 3. I relied on pauses, intonation and stress to isolate words or create boundaries in writing between spoken words. Long periods of silence or pauses were indicated by use of three dots in curly brackets{…}, while short pauses (e.g. a few seconds) were marked only by three dots. 4. Bodily expressions e.g. gestures like laughing, coughing, etc were taken into account in transcription and documented in straight brackets [ ]. 5. There was need for translation of interviews conducted in languages other than Standard English (e.g. Cameroon Pidgin English or PE), that my audience may not readily understand. Such interviews were translated into Standard English or SE. In order for readers to judge the validity of the translation, I opted to present both the original text plus a subsequent free translation below it. For example: Weti wé yua ticha di tel yu? What do your teachers say to you?

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6.To transcribe interviews conducted in PE before translating the written text into SE equivalents, I used the consonants of the English alphabet with their English values (except that ‘school’ was translated as /skul/ i.e. I did not make use of ‘C’), plus a seven-vowel system using: /i, e, é, a, ó, o, u/ with the accentuated letters indicating stress and rising intonation. 7. Nonsense syllables like ‘Errr’, ‘Emmm’, ‘Ehemn’, were included in transcripts. 8. Curved brackets with suspension marks (…) are used to indicate that some words or utterances from the original had been edited and left out when reporting utterances as evidence. 9. All hesitations, false starts and re-starts or reformulations were represented by three points … between words. 10. Indecipherable utterances were marked ‘unclear’ and ‘incomprehensible’ in straight brackets [ ]. 11. Interview participants were represented by their initials (e.g. KT, DE). Names of interviewees were omitted for reasons of anonymity. 12. Overlaps and cut-offs, repetitions and mistakes followed by selfcorrections were maintained in transcription. Overlaps and cut-offs are also indicated by three suspension marks … at the end of the interrupted utterance and beginning of the interruptive utterance. 13. Interruptions and breaks in conversation as well as reasons for these were explained inside straight brackets [ ]. 14. Particular words, expressions and passages in verbatim quotations e.g. those containing a key idea were italicised to emphasise them and draw the reader’s attention to them. 15. All errors of language use in teacher and student utterances e.g. lack of morphological, lexical, syntactic control were maintained in transcription.

284

Appendix 2

Transcription conventions used for lessons recorded In addition to conventions 1-3, 6-9, 12 and 14 adopted for interviews, the under mentioned were also used for lessons recorded. 1. Gestures were put in curved brackets ( ) and italicised. 2. I used capital letters to mark what was said emphatically in a loud voice. 3. Pauses or a period silence of long and short duration students observed following an invitation from teachers to speak were marked by the words ‘Student (s) remain (s) silent’. 4. I explained local jargon and colloquial expressions specific to Cameroon Pidgin English and Cameroon English by use of Standard English equivalents in straight brackets [ ]. 5. Teachers were referred to by the word ‘Teacher’ and students by pseudonyms; students who did not participate in the study were referred to by their real names when these were known and by the word ‘Student’ when their names were unknown to the researcher.

APPENDIX 3 SUPPLEMENTARY INTERVIEW ACCOUNTS

3A Teachers’ conceptualisation of feedback Interview with Mr WL (GHS), Chemistry teacher KT: If I asked you what the term feedback means in educational contexts what would you say? WL: Ok, emmm, its actually what you, you know, what you get as a...some sort of response from, from your students after teaching them for some time: maybe giving them a test and then trying to assess them. What they give back to you is what you...we...you understand as feedback, ehemn, from, from your students. The following is an excerpt from an interview I conducted with Mr DN:JBSS:Geo; it illustrates that his view of feedback had changed when I first interviewed him on the subject KT(...) Now is it also possible, in your opinion, that a teacher might provide feedback to students about their academic work or their conduct? DN: Yes, he, he, he does. Err for instance, when err a student doesn’t understand a concept and needs clarification. Err the clarification from the teacher is err will be feedback to the student, and emmm, talking about their conduct, they also need to know whether they are...whether their conduct is acceptable, particularly in classroom management. The teacher gives the feedback concerning their conduct in class.

Appendix 3

286

3B Teachers’ oral feedback practice 3B1 The incidence of positive feedback in lessons Feedback category

Flat acceptance

Interviewee

Illustrative comment

Carl

CM: ‘When you give correct answers to questions in class the teacher tells me that you have done well, that is the correct answer’ DN: ‘Err, I accept, I accept the, the question...I accept the answers and (...) yes, the first thing is for me to acknowledge that the answer provided is, is correct, yes’ KT: ‘And if you asked the question orally now and then someone attempted an answer which you thought, well, was just partially correct or not very clear, what would be your immediate reaction?’ RW: ‘Well, I normally react by telling the student that the answer is gearing towards the point, yes, that a student is actually gearing towards the point but there are some elements missing’ CM: ‘When you give correct answers to questions in class, the teacher tells me that you have done well, that is the correct answer, you are a top boy, you have done everything well, I’m happy with you’ RW: ‘You see, at times, if the student gives the right answer I’ll first of all begin by congratulating the student by saying ‘That’s good’, ‘Excellent’, ...’ WL: ‘Well, errr, I congratulate them for giving the right answer, yes, by simply saying ‘That’s good’, ‘Congratulations’, ‘You’re right’, you know, ‘Excellent’ and that kind of stuff.

DN:Geo

Partial acceptance RW:Geo

Carl

RW:Geo Praise WL: Chem

Vally

Reward

RW:Geo

VA: ‘At times, they encourage us by giving us...let’s say, they say in a test we have extra 0.5 marks...’ RW: ‘...Now, you see, the exam was graded on 20, you see and here you have two marks. Now this additional mark here, five marks was for diagrams. You know, in the case of

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Reward WL: Chem

287

Geography, students always show laxity to draw diagrams...’ KT: ‘Diagrams RW: ‘You must do something to encourage them...’ WL: ‘...I usually give marks, yes, to that. I say the first students who are able...capable of doing it, coming out with the right answer, I give plus one mark in the test’

3B2 The incidence of negative feedback in lessons Feedback category

Categorical refusal

Interviewee

RW:Geo

DN:Geo

Vally

Criticism

RW:Geo

Carl

Warning

Illustrative comment KT: ‘What do you do when students’ answers to questions are not correct or when they do not do well in their work? RW: ‘...first you say, ...you don’t just use very harsh terms on them, or maybe you abuse them, but err for me, a student who gives a wrong answer, I might just simply say ‘No, you are not correct’ DN: ‘Err I tell them straight away that the answer is not correct and err sometimes, I try to point out what makes the answer incorrect, ehemn’ VA: ‘Well, at times they...they just tell us that we are not actually working hard; maybe err, frowning with us’ RW: ‘...there are some of our colleagues, you know, they’ll obviously prefer to use their abusive language or abusive words and so on (...) A teacher will come and tell a student ‘You are big enough, you cannot even pass this and you are still in Form 1’ CM: ‘When there’s a student up trying to answer a, a question and you are sitting down disturbing, the teacher will either tell you to leave the class because you are disturbing your neighbour or your classmates from studying, and in the case where two of you are disturbing, the teacher might tell you people to stop disturbing, if not, he’s going to send you people to the Discipline Master for punishment’

Appendix 3

288

Henry

Punishment Laura

JN: Eng

KT: ‘When a teacher sends a child out of a lesson for making noise what do you think about that? HF: ‘Well, the teacher’s behaviour is fair enough because maybe that student has understood and doesn’t want his next friend to understand what the teacher is trying to say, and so he needs to be sent out rather than disturbing the whole class’ Days KT: ‘Now, when your answers to questions do not seem clear enough or when they are not complete enough, what would your teachers do? LN: ‘Some teachers will feel that you just want to provoke them or disturb them in class. Some teachers can, yes, can suspend you for some time or tell you to go and see the Discipline Master; you kneel down, you work punishment...’ JN: ‘...if it is said that in class the punishment you have to do for making noise is lashing you, I don’t think that maybe because you are my son I’ll start being sentimental, no. Or because you are the son of the Minister of Finance we shall start negotiating; we don’t negotiate academics you know...if it means that you fill a bucket with a teaspoon of water, using a teaspoon, errr you do that... I will lock you up in a room for about an hour or even forty minutes especially around the break period...

3B3 The incidence of neutral feedback in lesons Feedback category

Interviewee

Illustrative comment

JA:Eng

JA: ‘...and if they come the next day and it so happens that errr no good answer is provided the teacher comes in now to assist, or even if the good answer is provided the teacher has to go in now to elaborate and ask them how they managed to come up with their own answer’ EM: ‘...I can ask him to try to throw more light

Probe

EM:Eng

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DN:Geo Clue

Retrial

Henry

Doro

Direct correction DN:Geo

Clare Indirect Correction

RW: Geo

Advice

EM: Eng

289

on...He gives a correct answer. ‘Can you try to say why you think that answer is correct?’ DN: ‘Emmm, I may try to maybe put the question in a milder...or using different words so that the student may understand the question because sometimes the language may be the problem’ KT: ‘When a teacher gives you the opportunity to try another answer if the first one was wrong, what do you think about that approach?’ HF: ‘Well, I really like that because I may have...I may have two ideas in my head and one might be wrong. I may disqualify that one completely. I may feel discouraged bringing out the next idea, so when they give me a second chance I really feel happy’. DE: ‘If my answer is incomplete... he’ll give the right answer correcting us and telling us that this is what we should have done, said...when it is not clear and when I begin it, going half the way only, he either completes the answer or takes the question over again before giving the right response’ DN: ‘....When I have students speak out of turn in class emmm, I usually hush them own, that’s what I do. I remind you that you have to take permission, you know, you have to indicate that you want to talk ok. You want to talk and I give you the floor’ CB: ‘If you waste a lot of time he’ll just call for somebody else, yes. Or you yourself you’ll just sit down and he calls for somebody else’ RW: ‘What I do is that I’ll call for another student to give his or her own version of her own answer, yes...If it is correct then I make this other student to maybe go through or even jot down the answer, yes’ EM: ‘...they have come now as individuals. It is no longer a group problem, you know, and they have really diagnosed that problem...they’re half-way solving it...they’ve identified their problem and they’ve come to me. Together we try to see how we can handle that. So I know that on their own they can perform well. I won’t need to be there again to help.

Appendix 3

290

3C Feedback intentions as perceived by teachers and students Feedback category

Interviewee

Carl Acceptance WL:Chem

Henry

Praise JA:Eng

Clare

Rejection WL:Chem

Criticism Laura

Perceived feedback intention KT: ‘When a teacher accepts the answers you give in class what do you think their intention is?’ CM: ‘They are trying to tell me...trying to encourage me that what I’ve done is very good and I should continue with that habit’ WL: ‘The intention, you know...somebody knows that he or she has done something right only when it is affirmed. And when it is right and you affirm that it is right, you know, it keeps the person working’ HF: ‘Well, I believe the intention of the teacher when he praises you in class when you answer a question is that he wants to encourage you...He encourages you to answer more questions and participate in class’ JA: ‘Well, you know, when you praise somebody you encourage that person. It’s another means of encouragement, another means of errr letting the student understand that he is not really out of the path, you see’ CB: ‘That means your answer was wrong and they are going to ask another person. If the person does not know the answer, they themselves should be able to try to answer the question’ WL: ‘Well, if it is wrong and you tell the person that it is wrong, it means that the person still has to work, you know, better for that particular area’ KT: ‘And when they behave in that way rejecting your answer and even maybe talking to you rudely, what do you think they are trying to do? LN: ‘I don’t think they have any intention. Some, some teachers just hate some students but some others will like to correct the students. Shouting at the child very loud or abusing a child in class will not help the child’

Improving Learning in Secondary Schools Carl Warning DN:Geo

Probe

Laura

EM:Eng

Clare

Clue EM:Eng

Vally Correcting

291

CM: ‘...they are doing that because they want you to be attentive in class the next time. It’s simply a sign of correction, they are just correcting you’ DN: ‘The intention is emmm to let the students know that errr orderliness in the classroom is a prerequisite for learning and discipline. KT: ‘And sometimes when you answer a question, the teacher might ask for more explanation or more clarification. What do you think the intention is? LN: ‘The intention is maybe the teacher...maybe the student heard ...your classmate whisper the answer, so, the teacher will like to se...to give an explanation to really know what you are saying... EM: ‘I’m trying to transfer what knowledge they are going to acquire to their long-term memory... CB: ‘If the teacher has asked a question and...a student is trying to give an answer that is emmm closely related to the one that the teacher asked, so to help the student the teacher might help him or her, give her some clues or whatsoever, yes...to open up the mind of students for them to find out the answer’ EM: ‘...I intend to ...to guide the students in errr the response. Maybe I asked the question and no hand is up. Something just tells me I didn’t phrase it correctly, so I try to give a few clues like ‘Oh it begins with this or it can end in this way or this other way’. So, it’s just a way of emmm rephrasing my question and to get the students really see the focus’ VA: ‘Sorry, I don’t know if you mean the intention of the teacher’ KT: That’s right, in making sure the student is corrected’. VA: ‘Then the teacher at the time is mainly wanting the other students to tell you the right answer because they know that at that time you’ll take it as a challenge; that since the student is able to correct me, why not errr think like that student too and give the right answer?’

APPENDIX 4 CROSS-SECTIONAL VIEW OF STUDENTS AND TEACHERS IN CLASSROOMS

Mr WL and his students during a Chemistry lesson in Government High School

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Cross-sectional view of students in an English language lesson in Government High School

A teacher and his students in a Maths lesson in John the Baptist High School

294

Appendix 4

A teacher and his students in a Geography lesson in Private School of Arts and Science

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