Page 154 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

Chapter 6. General conclusions and discussion
acquisition which has often investigated the effectiveness of specific feedback types or strategies (Lyster et al., 2013).
The findings regarding adaptivity of feedback and activities for improvement are inconclusive. On the one hand, the pre- and post-measurements showed no difference on students' perception of adaptivity of improvement activities between the experimental and the control groups (Chapter 4) but students in the experimental group found feedback to be less adaptive than students in the control group. On the other hand, the intermediate measurements which were carried out each time directly after the accomplishment of a specific cycle of the self-evaluation procedure did indicate that the students of the experimental group found both the feedback and activities to be adaptive. Possible explanations for these differences in findings relate to the research instruments, the students and the teachers. Regarding the instruments, the intermediate measurements focused on a specific cycle of the self-evaluation procedure and therefore may have probed the perception of adaptivity more precisely than the pre- and post-measurements which addressed a whole period of time and lessons in speaking skills in general. Another explanation relates to a change among the students of the experimental group. They might have become more critical through the self-evaluation procedure, by thinking about whether they had got what they needed. High expectations could have been raised among the students of the experimental group with regard to adaptivity of feedback and follow-up activities because they were asked to indicate their needs in the self-evaluations, while this was not asked of those in the control group. Finally, another explanation could be that the teachers from the experimental group could indeed have given more adaptive feedback but not enough. There could have been a number of reasons for this, for example because of inexperience and need for habituation to the new way of teaching, or because they lacked the time for adequate analysis of the self- evaluations and for devising adaptive feedback and learning activities. Follow-up research could seek explanations by, for example, questioning students and comparing students' preferences with regard to feedback and activities with observations of feedback and activities actually given.
6.4.2 Theoretical implications for research on teaching
This dissertation also has theoretical implications for research on teaching. In theories about implementation of educational innovations and teacher professional development, little
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