The main goal of this paper is to present the design of a large research project which examines in depth the relationship between teachers’ responsive teaching, defined as feedback practice, and students’ learning outcome in Mathematics, defined as achievements, self-regulation skills and self-efficacy.

The study draws on both socio-cultural and cognitive perspectives on learning by including concepts from the socio-cognitive theory tradition which we consider useful when investigating such complex phenomena as learning and learning outcome, where individual and social aspects are closely interwoven. A key premise in socio-cultural theory is that learning and assessment practices are embedded in the contexts in which they take place.

Formative feedback is a means to scaffold students’ learning sensitively so that they are supported in making meaning and understanding for themselves based on ‘where they are’ and ‘where to go’ to reach future goals (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Vygotsky (1986)  states that language is fundamental to the process of learning and stresses the complex interplay of thought and language in shaping meaning, which suggests that classroom talk and feedback affects learning. Central to Vygotsky’s theory of learning is the idea that conceptual knowledge first appears between people on an inter-psychological plane, and then inside the learner on an intra-psychological plane (Vygotsky, 1978). The notion that the teacher assists student performance in the zone of proximal development suggests that teachers guide the discourse on the inter-psychological level to support student learning. This recognizes the importance of teacher-student discourse in the classroom as a form of scaffolding (Bruner, 1986).

The project is situated within Bandura’s (1997) theory of self-efficacy which implies that, in order to learn, students have to be able to trust that their own competence will enable them to succeed. Self-efficacy is related to learning since it is a strong predictor of students’ motivation for learning.

Timperley et al’s. model (2009) lays the theoretical foundation for the view on teacher learning taken in this project: the starting point for teacher learning is the students’ needs, and then what teachers need to learn in order to help students learn. The next step is to support teachers in developing the understanding of the desired competence, in our case, math teachers’ pedagogical feedback practices, in order to support teachers in translating understanding into practice, and to observe the impact of the changed practice on student learning.

The overall research question is: What is the relation between responsive teaching (feedback practice) and student learning (achievements, self-efficacy and self-regulation)?

The 1st sub-question is: What are the differences between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of feedback practices?

The 2nd sub-question is: What is the effect of the intervention (working with teachers on feedback practices over a period of 7 months)?

a) In terms of closing the gap between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of feedback?

b) In terms of improving learning? 

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