Page 85 - The SpeakTeach method - Esther de Vrind

4.3 Research aim and research questions
The overarching research aim was to ascertain to what extent a self-evaluation procedure can be an adaptive resource for secondary school students to learn to improve speaking skills in foreign languages through self-regulation. Since the aim of the self-evaluation procedure was to support secondary school students to fulfil all of the different parts of the process of self- regulation more and more independently, to reflect on various aspects of their speaking performance and to make appropriate plans, the following specific research question was formulated:
A. To what extent did the students’ perception of their learning needs change during the self-evaluation procedure?
It was intended that students could execute their plans with the activities and feedback they needed to improve their speaking performance during the self-evaluation procedure. Therefore, the following research question was formulated:
B. To what extent did the students consider feedback and activities for improvement provided during the self-evaluation procedure to be adaptive to their needs?
Finally, as mentioned in the theoretical framework, an affect-creating loop operated parallel to the process of self-regulation and influenced it (see Figure 8, Carver & Scheier, 2000). Findings described in the Theoretical Framework section of this chapter suggest that positive feelings could be provoked and anxiety reduced through students’ control, ownership and insight into their own learning process during the self-evaluation procedure. The self- evaluation procedure was designed to enable them to learn from both positive and negative points and to gain control over the learning process. As a result, speaking anxiety might be expected to decline and positive feelings to be provoked. The following research question was formulated:
C. To what extent did students experience the self-evaluation procedure as motivating and did their speaking anxiety change during the course of iterations of the self-evaluation procedure?
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