Theoretical framework

Transferring pedagogical ideas from professional development (PD) activities to the workplace can be complex for many teachers. For this reason, experts recommend incorporating features like reflection, active learning, peer collaboration, job-embedded settings, and practice modeling in PD initiatives (Darling-Hammond et al. 2017). Classroom videos could be one of the sources supporting this professional learning process (Santagata & Yeh, 2014).  Video-taped teaching actions became popular in university courses and teacher PD until becoming one of the most used instruments in improving the quality of teaching (OECD, 2020). The study aims to understand the effects of videos on the perception and comprehension of formative feedback and teacher self-efficacy. The project's overall scope is fostering the teacher's capability to communicate feedback to students. The research had two objectives: (1) understanding the participants' perception of video-taped teachers' feedback and (2) testing the effect of two learning activities on teacher self-efficacy and comprehension of formative feedback.

 Video-based learning strategies

The simple vision of a video is not enough to generate an accurate comprehension of the teaching and learning processes. The impact of videos depends on the implemented learning strategies (Seidel & Stürmer, 2014). Referring to a classification proposed by Seidel and colleagues (2013), we tested two strategies (Gentile, 2019).

1. Direct instruction (DI). The first strategy presents the fundamentals of pedagogical knowledge. Then, teachers watch a video, take notes, think about what was noted, and recall the pedagogical knowledge earlier received (Seidel, Blomberg & Renkl, 2013).

2. Knowledge construction (KC). In this second strategy, teachers observe videos and write down notes about teaching facts to prepare the next pedagogical reflections and reasonings. Before the vision of the video, instructors do not provide any pedagogical principles, teaching strategies, or research evidence (Seidel, Blomberg & Renkl, 2013).

Formative feedback

One of the central aspects of video-based activities is considering teacher reasoning. The meta-analyses proposed by Seidel and Shavelson (2007) and Hattie (2023) on the effectiveness of various educational factors can offer a knowledge base to support the reasoning during and after video observation through pedagogical categories. Both scholars agree that constructive feedback can make a difference in student learning.  We considered feedback directly connected to teacher assessment competence (Mitchell & Sutherland, 2020).  We proposed to assume a three facets model of feedback (Hattie, 2012): (a) task-oriented feedback, (b) motivational feedback, and (c) student-oriented feedback. The teacher's capacity to practice formative assessment using feedback can be the object of videotaping. 

Teacher self-efficacy

According to Bandura’s theory (1977), self-efficacy (SE) refers to how people judge "their capabilities to organize and execute courses of actions required to attain designed types of performances" (p. 391). Regarding teacher self-efficacy (TSE), Täschner et al. (2024) define it as “an individual belief to be able to execute all the actions needed for the job profile of a teacher” (p. 4-5). TSE promotes a feeling of confidence and a sense of effectiveness in subject-specific teaching strategies and/or classroom management (Hajovsky et al., 2020). It is expected that the higher the TSE, the better the motivation of teachers to use knowledge in their practices. Moreover, when future teachers feel a high SE, they are more motivated to transfer new pedagogical knowledge into their practice (Kelley et al., 2020).

We involved a group of in-service Italian teachers enrolled in a one-year academic course to attain a national qualification in special education. The study answers to three research questions (RQs): ● RQ1. Is the participant's perception coherent with the theoretical feedback model (task-oriented, motivation-oriented, student-oriented)? ● RQ2. How does teacher feedback self-efficacy change in relationship to experimental treatments (KC versus DI)? ● RQ3. Is the relationship between treatments and self-efficacy moderated by relevant teacher (gender, age, total years of teaching) and contextual (grade level, high-density school locations, total amount of students per school) factors? ● RQ4. How does teachers’ comprehension of formative feedback self-efficacy change in relationship to experimental treatments (KC versus DI)? Participants The study involved 84 Italian teachers (84,5% female), with a mean age of 38.44 (SD = 6.98); 61,9% worked in middle school, 34,5% in high school, and 2,3% in primary school. The average teaching experience in years was 6.55 years (SD = 4.07). 53.8% of the overall sample worked in a school located in a town with less than 15,000 citizens (the respective counterparts worked in places with more than 15,000 citizens), and the average number of students per school was 344 (SD = 324). Procedure and measures The teachers were randomly assigned to two groups: DI treatment (N = 43) and KC treatment (N = 41). They watched two video clips where teachers provided feedback to students. In CLIP-I, participants observed a teacher interacting with the entire class during a writing assignment, while in CLIP-II, they saw a teacher working with a small group on math tasks. For the KC approach, participants watched the videos first, then engaged in guided discovery learning to understand feedback through note-taking and sharing. In the DI approach, the instructor began with lectures on feedback theory and details, followed by individual and group exercises and analysis of examples, culminating in video observations. Data was collected via a questionnaire at the end of each activity, capturing perceptions of teacher feedback, self-efficacy in providing feedback (Caprara, 2001), comprehension of formative feedback, and teacher/contextual variables. Different researchers led each condition. No significant differences in teacher and contextual variables were found between the two groups.

Objective 1. Factor analysis produced a two-factor solution: learning-oriented feedback (Lof) and motivational-oriented feedback (Mof). This model explains 53% of the total variance, with a weak correlation between the two components (r = 0.16). This result does not support the three facets of the feedback model proposed during the learning activities. The factor analysis also revealed differences in the hierarchical order of items for CLIP I and II, likely due to the content of the videos. In CLIP II, subjects perceived the teacher as more student-oriented, while CLIP I showed a better balance between classroom and student-specific feedback. Objective 2. Findings suggest that teachers feel more confident providing feedback after participating in the KC learning activities. There is a significant difference in self-efficacy (SE) scores between KC (M=0.91, SD=2.03) and DI (M=-0.80, SD=3.17), with t=-2.88(71) and a p-value below 0.05. KC treatment directly impacts SE scores, with no teacher or contextual factors moderating the effects of treatment on the dependent variable. This result received 62.9% support from the data among other hypotheses and 91.8% support when equalizing KC and DI treatments. On average, teachers in the KC treatment reported higher scores (adjusted M=4.84, SD=.80) compared to the DI condition (adjusted M=4.17, SD=1.25) after controlling for individual and contextual variables. These findings align with studies on how teacher education can positively impact SE (Bandura, 1997; Clark & Newberry, 2019; El-Abd & Chaaban, 2021). Qualitative analysis confirmed the superiority of KC, promoting more discussion among colleagues (2 = 4.719, df=1, p=0.030), reflection and conceptualization (2 = 11.007, df=1, p=0.001), and comprehension of formative feedback (2 = 9.598, df=1, p=0.002). One limitation of the study is the absence of a third group, which could strengthen the causality between results and KC learning activities.

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