Listening to the most important people in the room: How can student feedback surveys improve secondary teachers' practices?

Description

Student voice, or student role in decision making processes in schools, has emerged in the 21st Century as a potential strategy for improving the success of school reform efforts.

In Australia, particularly in Victoria which declares itself as the Education State, where everyone has the same opportunities for a great education (see Ministerial forward in VicSRC, 2016), schools are expected to incorporate student voice initiatives so students actively shape their own education (DET Victoria, 2017). Yet, little is known about the actual impact of student feedback surveys as a student voice initiative on educators’ practices.

While Australian schools are encouraged to enhance practices of feedback and states employ climate feedback surveys such as the Attitudes to School Survey (DET Victoria, 2019) to understand students’ overall experiences, little is known about the use of one-on-one student feedback surveys to assess and improve teaching. This study is timely in identifying ways that can help teachers act upon their students’ feedback surveys and improve their experiences in the classroom. Specifically, it intends to investigate how student feedback survey data could be used to enhance teachers’ practices rather than simply assessing them in Victorian secondary schools.

Research Articles

• Finefter-Rosenbluh, I., Ryan, T., & Barnes, M. (2021). The impact of student perception surveys on teachers’ practice: Teacher resistance and struggle in student voice-based assessment initiatives of effective teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 106, 103436.
• Finefter-Rosenbluh, I. (2021). Who's afraid of the students' voice?: About teacher assessment, evaluation and considering students' role in school improvement. In Brooks, J. & Hefferenan, A. (Eds.) The school leadership survival guide: What to do when things go wrong, how to learn from mistakes, and why you should prepare for the worst (pp. 521-541). Information Age Publishing.
• Finefter-Rosenbluh, I. (2022). Between student voice-based assessment and teacher-student relationships: teachers’ responses to ‘techniques of power’in schools. British journal of sociology of education, 43(6), 842-859.
• Finefter-Rosenbluh, I., & Berry, A. (2023). With or without you? Exploring student perception survey assessment data as a teacher-student (un) shared process. Teachers and Teaching, 1-14.
• Finefter-Rosenbluh, I., & Berry, A. (2023). Student voice and promoting holistic assessments in schools. ReConnectEd, (3), 25-29.
• Finefter-Rosenbluh, I., Berry, A., & Ryan, T. (2023). Acting upon student voice-based teaching assessment initiatives: An account of participatory action research for teacher professional learning. Journal of Teacher Education, 74(5), 508-521.

Activities and resources

• Guest Lecture, 2024, "Teaching Assessment in the Student Voice Age: Problems and Promises"
  Institute of Education, Faculty of Education and Society - University College London
• Guest Lecture, 2024, "Student Voice to Assess Teaching and Learning Experiences: Between Reform and Practice"
  Institute of Education, Faculty of Education and Society - University College London
• Guest Lecture, 2024, "The Ethics of Assessment and Feedback"
  Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment (OUCEA)
• Social Education Victoria (SEV) in partnership with VicSRC and the Victorian Department of Education Launches student Empowerment Course for Teachers (2023)
• Beyond voice: Ethically working with student voice-based assessment data
  Victorian Student Representative Council (2023)
• School Improvement Episode 38: Acting on student feedback
  Teacher Magazine - The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) (2022)
• Schools are surveying students to improve teaching. But many teachers find the feedback too difficult to act on
  The Conversation
  Finefter-Rosenbluh, I., Barnes, M. & Ryan, T. (2021)

Investigators