Eric.ed.gov – The Association between Teachers’ Use of Formative Assessment Practices and Students’ Use of Self-Regulated Learning Strategies. REL 2021-041

Three Arizona school districts surveyed teachers and students in grades 3-12 in spring 2019 to better understand the association between teachers’ use of formative assessment practices and students’ use of self-regulated learning strategies and to help shape related teacher development efforts moving forward. Formative assessment is a set of practices that enable teachers and students to examine how learning is progressing throughout a lesson or related series of lessons, so that teaching and learning activities can be adjusted as needed. Self-regulated learning is a proactive process in which students select an appropriate learning strategy to advance their learning goals. The survey results indicated that responding teachers frequently gave students feedback but less frequently provided occasions for students to provide feedback to one another, while responding students frequently tracked their own progress but less frequently solicited feedback from their teacher or peers. Only a small positive association was found between the frequency of teachers’ formative assessment practices and the average number of self-regulated learning strategies that their students used. The correlation was stronger in elementary school than in secondary school and stronger in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classrooms than in non-STEM classrooms. Some of teachers’ least frequently used formative assessment practices–facilitating student peer feedback and self-assessment–had stronger positive associations with the average number of self-regulated learning strategies that their students used than other, more frequently used practices. The more frequently that teachers reported using these practices, the more self-regulated learning strategies their students reported using. [For the appendixes, see ED609120; for the study snapshot, see ED609121.]