Mental Wellness Through Feedback-Focused in A Teacher Preparation Program

Abstract

This qualitative study employed a group of teacher candidates (n=35) from a School of Education in Southern California.  The professor of the class replaced traditional grading (i.e., letter-grades or points) with a mastery-based approach that utilized feedback-only assessment to guide, rather than evaluate, each candidates’ understanding of the content. After receiving explicit feedback from the professor, each candidate was given the opportunity to revise their assignments until they achieved mastery (defined as a score of Proficient or Advance on the assignment’s rubric). Such an alteration to the process allowed the participants - graduate students preparing to be K-12 educators - to reconceptualize what it means to be assessed, transforming it from a strictly summative process into a more formative one. Notably, the data showed a positive interaction between feedback-only learning and the participants’ psycho-emotional well being. As a result, the authors’ argue that implementing such experiential learning provides teacher candidates with a phenomenological understanding of assessment that can alter their theoretical, emotional, and practical frameworks regarding assessment. This may increase the likelihood that such teacher candidates adopt similar assessment approaches in their own classrooms someday, providing K-12 students with the right catalyst to reconceptualize their own understanding of assessment while positively affecting their own mental wellness.

Keywords: mental wellness, grades, feedback-focused, teacher preparation, mastery-based approach

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/16-3-08

Publication date: March 30^th 2025