The problem of enactment: The influence of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs on their uptake and implementation of feedback-related ideas and practices

Using an interpretive, qualitative case study methodology, the current study investigated 20 primary school teachers’ beliefs and understandings about feedback, and the use of feedback to enhance student learning. The use of Sadler’s (1989) theoretical framework illuminated both similarities and differences among teachers. As teachers’ feedback discourse was examined in more detail, the influence of self-efficacy beliefs on the uptake and enactment of new ideas and practices associated with assessment for learning and feedback became apparent. This paper pays particular attention to the participating teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in regard to the scope of the discursive changes made to their feedback practice, the amount of effort teachers expended in moving toward mastery, their willingness to persevere in the face of difficulty and their apparent resilience when faced with self-doubt. The study concluded that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs will either enhance or impede their journey toward the enactment of the contemporary feedback discourse.