Functional significance of feedback in learning

Feedback is important to learning because, if used appropriately, it facilitates learning. There are at least three levels of functional significance of feedback, namely, motivational, evaluative, and learning. This paper presents an investigation into the types of feedback school teachers use and how they relate to the three different levels functional significance of feedback. Two studies were conducted with the first one aiming at gaining some preliminary understanding of the types of feedback teachers used more frequently for their everyday teaching. Questionnaire survey was used as the sole research method for this first study, involving 591 school teachers in Hong Kong. The second study used two research methods – teacher interviews and lesson observation. Forty-seven teachers were interviewed to draw upon their use of feedback for teaching. Amongst these teachers, 27 were observed in class with the purpose of achieving a deeper understanding of how feedback was used in classroom situations. It was found that teachers did use feedback to help students learn and that teachers tended to use feedback more for motivational function.