Investigating provision of feedback by chemistry teachers in facilitating learning in classroom interaction: A case of rural secondary school in north – western Uganda

Learners’ responses in the classroom offer avenues for teachers to intervene in form of feedback. They convey a lot of desirable knowledge yet sometimes contrary to the established scientific concepts in chemistry. Teachers in a way to derived meaning out these responses use various assessment strategies so as to harmonize these differences in concepts. The study investigated provision of feedback by chemistry teachers in classroom interaction at lower secondary (S.1 and S.3) classes in a government grant aided mixed secondary school in North – Western Uganda, Koboko District. The study in particular sought to understand the types of feedback provided by the teachers and their purposes in facilitating learning and then challenges in feedback provision. This qualitative study used interviews, lesson observation, document analysis and focus group discussion as well as field notes to collect data. Data analysis involved organizing, coding, establishing patterns and interpreting data. Findings manifested that teachers’ written and verbal feedback on learners’ responses is evaluative in nature. This hinders both the teacher and learner from venturing with further learning. Further still, evaluative feedback deprived learners of information to act on their wrong responses. The findings also showed that teachers used punishment to refocus the minds of the learners’ towards learning and emphasized more standards and assessment criteria than other purposes of feedback such as diagnostic practices. Finally the study established that feedback provision to a disengaged learners as well as large class size are still insurmountable hurdles to the teachers’ feedback practices. The study therefore recommends that teachers need to understand different forms f feedback and integrate into their lessons both descriptive and evaluative feedback types so as to facilitate learning in the classroom. Teachers have to train learners in self and peer assessment in order to overcome the challenge of large class size and adopt constructive feedback practice to deal with disengaged learners other than appealing to threat of punishment