Page 115 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

5.3 Research aim and research questions
The theoretical framework addressed the question of how adaptive routes can be set up in the context of educational innovation, enabling teachers to achieve both the goals of the innovation and their own goals in a way that fits in with, shapes and builds on what they already do in practice. In this study the educational innovation for a professional development trajectory addressed a teaching approach for adaptive feedback and differentiated activities to improve speaking skills in foreign languages. We called this educational innovation the SpeakTeach method. The aim of the research was to investigate the extent to which the professional development approach we had developed, which is based on modularity and self- evaluation, actually led to adaptive learning routes in the context of the innovation (namely in the context of implementing the SpeakTeach method). In this study, adaptive within the context of the innovation means that we were interested in the extent to which teachers achieved the goals of the innovation (the implementation of the SpeakTeach method) as well as their other goals to their own satisfaction by following learning routes they had chosen themselves, and whether they intended to apply all or parts of the innovation (i.e. the SpeakTeach method) in the future.
This led to the following sub questions:
A. To what extent did the teachers achieve the goals of the innovation (i.e. the
SpeakTeach method) and their other goals and to what extent were they satisfied with
the achievement of their goals?
B. To what extent did the teachers follow adaptive learning routes in the context of the
innovation (i.e. the SpeakTeach method) and to what extent did they intend to continue the SpeakTeach method in the future?
5.4 Method
5.4.1 Context
The adaptive professional development trajectory in this study aimed to support foreign language teachers in expanding their repertoire of adaptive feedback and differentiated activities for improvement in their regular teaching of speaking skills in secondary schools, because research has shown that adaptive feedback is desirable but not common practice in
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