Does smartphone-assisted student feedback affect teachers’ teaching quality?

In this study, it was investigated if student feedback promoted teachers’ insight into where they could improve their lessons and their reflection on their lessons. It was also studied in what ways teachers worked on improvement, based on the student feedback, and whether it affected the quality of their teaching. Student perceptions of teaching quality were measured by means of a smartphone application for providing teachers with feedback on their lesson. Teachers in this study (N = 60) were randomly assigned to the control or experimental group. The smartphone application was used several times by teachers to obtain student feedback. The teachers reported that they gained insight into where they could improve their lessons. They reported improvement-oriented actions in response to the student feedback. According to students, teachers first slightly improved their teaching quality. However, teachers did not seem to reflect significantly more on their lessons and their improvement did not sustain. Explanations for the findings are discussed and suggestions for future research are presented

Factors related to differences in digitally measured student perceptions of teaching quality

Modern digital technologies enable the efficient collection and processing of student perceptions of teaching quality. However, students’ ratings could be confounded by student, teacher, and classroom characteristics. We investigated students’ ratings of 26 teachers who used the digital tool Impact! in their mathematics lessons with 14- and 15-year-old students (n = 717). A Bayesian item response theory (IRT)-model approach was used to model potential associations. High-performing students on average rated their teacher higher than low- and middle-performing students. More likeable and more experienced teachers received higher ratings from their students, and the higher the class’s average math grade, the higher the students rated their teachers. Other variables investigated in this study (e.g., student and teacher gender, class size) were not associated with student perceptions of teaching quality. Both related and unrelated factors are discussed. Some implications of the findings for practice, limitations of the study, and suggestions for further research are presented