The Project
The project Estratègies de feedback intern pel desplegament dels nous currículums competencials: cap a l’autoregulació de l’aprenentatge de l’alumnat (EFICCA3) (Internal feedback strategies for the deployment of the new competence curricula: towards the self-regulation of student learning (EFICCA3)) lasts 18 months and is endowed with € 30,000 from the Catalan Department of Education (Call 2023. Line B). It is an educational research project, committed to the strategies and methodologies to deploy the key aspects of new curriculums in educational practice and has a team led by Maite Fernández-Ferrer of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) with members of different Catalan universities.
Objectives
The project proposes to seek and understand internal feedback practices to promote the self-regulation of students, in order to be able to design educational proposals that promote this type of experience. In concrete, the specific objectives of the research are the following:
SO1. Identify the characteristics and factors of internal feedback practices to promote student self-regulation.
SO2. Develop and validate an instrument for the detection of success cases based on the characteristics and key factors of internal feedback processes for the self-regulation of students.
SO3. Identify successful practices on internal feedback processes for student self-regulation in international and local schools.
SO4. Analyze the key processes for ensuring successful internal feedback practices and thus the development of student self-regulation, in order to establish a possible route or journey that teaching teams can travel.
Why do we need EFICCA3?
The new Catalan curriculums are committed to an assessment that promotes the involvement and commitment of students, facilitating self-regulation and metacognition. They are framed within formative assessment that allows students to identify the advances, difficulties and errors that arise throughout the process, so they can make the appropriate decisions to achieve their goals. Competence acquisition is key and, specifically, the competence to learn to learn. This competence includes the ability of students to self-regulate and, therefore, be aware of their own emotions, ideas and behaviors in order to implement strategies to adapt to new situations and achieve their own learning objectives.
Although in recent years there has been abundant research on formative assessment, the process that involves the internalization of information so that students regulate their own learning more effectively continues to be a “black box” (Lui and Andrade, 2022). Therefore, it seems pertinent to investigate what factors intervene in this internal feedback process and what are the steps that students take to appreciate, decode, interpret and apply this feedback.
In order to ensure the implementation of quality pedagogical practices, we need to know how students transform external feedback into “internal” feedback – that is, what they do with the information they receive about their work or learning process. Another question is what mechanisms make that this internal feedback influences the students’ ability to self-regulate their learning.
How we do it?
Systematic Literature Review
Currently there are few studies on internal feedback and those published usually belong to very specific contexts. In order to better understand the metacognitive processes of internal feedback and the key factors that accompany them, we complete in the first phase a systematic review of the available literature that will continue in a less intensive way throughout the project.
Preparation of a checklist
Once we know what characteristics and factors can be expected to be key in internal feedback processes and promote self-regulation of learning, we need to identify educational centers that meet these requirements to be able to study their practices in more detail. For the selection of centres we elaborate an instrument, specifically a checklist, which we share 1) with international schools known for their commitment to teaching innovation in assessment and 2) with Catalan secondary schools that have already obtained or participated in some educational innovation project on assessment. Based on the answers, we identify successful cases of which we will invite five Catalan centres and three international centres to participate in our project.
Case studies
Once the centres for case studies have been chosen and their commitment to the project has been confirmed, we study five Catalan cases and three international cases. For each case, we carry out an exhaustive analysis and review of the key processes through the visit to the centres and from interviews with those responsible for teaching innovation on assessment.
Training materials for teachers
To ensure the desired impact on teachers, we develop in a final phase not only academic publications, but above all materials for teachers interested in incorporating internal feedback into their assessment practice. With infographics, videos and technical reports we share possible itineraries or journeys for the implementation of internal feedback practices that develop the students’ self-regulation capacity, and therefore foster the competence learning and the competence to learn to learn.
Where are we currently standing?
We are currently doing fieldwork.
