Flexible And Dialogic Instructional Strategies And Formative Feedback: An Observational Research On The Efficacy Of Assessment Practices In Italian High Schools

The main purpose of this observational research is to analyze how the assessment practices (Calonghi, 1976; Black & Wiliam, 2009; Domenici, 2010) used in high schools affect students’ lives by either developing or inhibiting both their growth from a cognitive and metacognitive viewpoint (Cornoldi, 1995; Vermunt, 1996; Moè & De Beni, 2000) and their self-regulating process (Zimmerman, 1989; Pellerey, 2006; Boud, 2012), elements needed to foster educational success. Mixed-method approaches are used in the research (Lucisano & Salerni, 2002; Trinchero, 2004; Creswell, 2013). The sample group selected for the study is taken from first-year students of the Department of Education attending the undergraduate course in Educational Organization and Assessing Process at Roma Tre University. Data were collected through qualitative and quantitative tools, implemented on the Moodle platform of the Department of Education. Students were asked to reflect on the way their high school teachers used to provide assessment evaluation (Moretti et al., 1999) and give formative feedback on the results (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996; Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006; Hounsell et al., 2008; Harks et al., 2014). The aim was to reveal whether or not and eventually how teachers used flexible (Domenici, 2009; Duffy et al., 2012) and dialogic (Bruner, 1982; Calvani, 2012) instructional strategies, which helped stimulate the development of self-regulation. A semi-structured questionnaire was given to each student in order to have a framework of their assessment's experience and to collect further information on the evaluation tools used by teachers and the feedback provided to students. The findings suggest that, when teachers use a flexible and dialogic instructional strategies and provide formative feedback, students view their evaluation experience as being educational and helpful as it develops motivation in study, self-regulation and cognitive and metacognitive growth. On the other hand, assessment influenced by effects related to prejudices is seen by students as a practice that negatively affects their academic achievement, leading to discouragement and frustration in the study process.