Feedback to students has been identified as a key strategy in learning and teaching, but we know less about how feedback is understood by students. The purpose of this study is to gain more insight into lower secondary students’ perceptions of when and how they find classroom feedback useful. This article draws on data generated through individual interviews with 11 students representing four lower secondary schools (grades 8–10, aged 13–15) in Norway. Feedback types are identified from students’ perceptions, coded and indexed. A feedback typology is designed to provide a framework which can be used to reflect on useful classroom feedback based on lower secondary school students’ perceptions.

This study examined students’ feedback engagement and assessment experiences in a higher education teacher programme with the Assessment Experience Questionnaire (n = 182) and individual interviews (n = 14). The results suggested that quantity of effort and feedback quality were the most important predictors of variance in students’ use of feedback. Feedback quality was a stronger predictor for female students’ use of feedback compared to male students. Feedback quantity partially mediated the relationship between use of feedback and feedback quality for all students. The interviewed students emphasised that feedback had to be comprehensible, process-oriented, and dialogic to be used. On the contrary, feedback barriers were considered to occur when feedback was negative, incomprehensible, contradictory, or lacked relevance. Maladaptive feedback agency was reported to be exercised by students when teacher-student relationships were affected by mistrust, negativity, or disagreements. The results indicated a summative assessment culture with some formative traits.

Schools of today are educating for an unknown future, and knowledge of today will become partly irrelevant in 20–30 years. Teaching and assessment focusing on the learning of factual knowledge will not serve the needs of the learners in the future, as it does not prepare for life-long learning in a per today not definable future. The main goal of today’s schooling should be to support students in learning how to go about learning. The aim of this position paper is to define responsive pedagogy in relation to self-regulation, self-efficacy, achievements and assessment. The concept responsive pedagogy used in this paper is the recursive dialogue between the learner’s internal feedback and external feedback provided by significant others. The core of responsive pedagogy is the explicit intention of the teacher to make learners believe in their own competence and ability to successfully complete assignments and meet challenges, to strengthen students’ self-efficacy, and to increase their overall self-concept. Responsive pedagogy is hypothesised to impact achievements positively, yet this needs to be carefully researched. Today’s schools should prepare for tomorrow, and educate independent self-regulated learners who believe in their own capacity to engage in continuous learning and knowledge production.

Feedback, talk and joint activities that build on knowledge and shared aims are powerful supports for learning. However, several studies of lower secondary students’ perceptions of teachers’ support indicate low teacher support. To investigate the quality of learning support, a content analysis instrument (CLASS) was used in analyses of 56 video-recorded lessons from 28 teachers in four lower secondary schools. This has allowed for a mapping of dimensions of quality feedback interactions, and results show significant and very strong inter-item relationships. The lessons analysed are characterized by a positive climate, and teachers emphasize encouragement, but feedback is found to be more encouraging than learning oriented. The results support previous studies based on students’ perceptions, but provide insights into practices that are necessary if a goal is to influence teachers’ professional learning.

There are indications that teachers’ feedback practice is related to beliefs they hold about pupils’ learning and the purpose of feedback. This article presents changes in beliefs and practices of three teachers in lower secondary school taking part in an intervention to improve formative classroom feedback. Data includes interviews, observations and workshop dialogues with the teachers, plus interviews with six pupils (two for each teacher) taking place pre- and post-intervention. Results describe different trajectories, tracing changes in underlying beliefs that highlight the complexity of professional learning as well as the importance of tailoring interventions. The discussion addresses theoretical perspectives of change among teachers and elaborates on results in relation to professional workplace learning.