Exploiting the values of negative feedback from students' reflections as an innovative approach for pedagogical professional development

Abstract

This paper investigates how the values of negative feedback from students’reflections should be exploited and utilized as an approach of pedagogical development. It was extracted as a step of the 3-year-action-research circles with an empirical study using the data collected from 96 cases of students’ reflections in a university of Poland for both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Regardless the limitation of the diversity of the research tools and types of data, the study found the noticeable lessons through the process of problematizing the significant learning. The data was framed from the negative awareness at the wording and surface levels for quantitative descriptive and then these signals were directed to locate the messages holding the negative signals for qualitative analysis. Eight groups of codes were categorized using Atlas.ti from 172 quotations, extracted from 140 extracts of 96 cases of students’ reflections. The findings show that the negative signals are important to the teacher’s modifications and actions to alternate the future plans and teaching. In addition, seven problems were also generated from analyzing the quotations using this design. The attempts to fix these problems would facilitate the teachers to improve the skills of teaching and quality of the course. A different way of looking at students’ negative signals of this paper could be seen as an innovative approach to pedagogical development in comparison to the common usage of feedback itself which has been exploited divergently in education.