Exploring the Effectiveness of Video-Vignettes to Develop Mathematics Student Teachers’ Feedback Competence

The ability to give constructive, purposeful and timely feedback is essential to the teaching profession. Research indicates that this competence remains underdeveloped during initial teacher education. This paper focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a competence development intervention with secondary mathematics student teachers. The intervention builds on videotaped response-based simulations. A pre-test/post-test design was used. Mathematics student teachers were invited to respond to open-ended questions while watching a series of video-vignettes which focused on providing feedback to students in different real-life classroom situations. Content analysis of student teachers’ answers helped us map changes in their feedback competence development. A scale was developed to capture their related feedback self-efficacy. The results indicate that the intervention had a positive impact on the development of mathematics student teachers’ feedback competence. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.