Feedback amidst New Assessment Culture in Malawian Primary Schools

The study investigated primary school teacher feedback practices amidst the new assessment culture. This was in an attempt to understand how teacher feedback meaningfully contributes to assessment for learning under the umbrella of continuous assessment. The study used a qualitative approach in order to understand feedback practices through classroom observation, face-to-face interview and document analysis. The findings of the study revealed that teachers in the study dominantly used oral feedback and grades as a form of informal and formal feedback respectively. With regards to value of feedback, five out of eight participating teachers did not attach value of using feedback in order to inform learning. These teachers merely considered learners performance as a tool to meet the administrative requirement of promoting them to another class which is a summative dimension. The assessment results were neither used to change the teaching approaches nor assist learners in their learning gaps. Three participants attempted to use assessment results to improve the learner’s performance by engaging them in remedial lessons in order to fill their learning gaps. While some teachers attempted to use assessment results to inform learning, high-class sizes and workload hampered their efforts. The study reveals that the operating context for effective implementation of CA feedback practices is still hostile in the participating schools which needs to be addressed.