Instructional feedback based continuous evaluation: an analysis from the control theory point of view

Abstract

The instructional feedback model establishes a parallelism among a feedback control automated system and the relationships between the teacher/instructor and the student/learner. In such a model the teacher/instructor is assumed to be the controller or provider of energy to the system to be controlled (the student’s/learner skills and competences on a specific subject). The instructional feedback is a closed loop model that relies on receiving feedback from the students/learners and to generate different actions to modify its learning performance. In this communication the idea of instructional feedback is reviewed and slightly reformulated highlighting the necessity and importance of another feedback loop that has to be closed on the student/learner side as well as providing the means for this. On the conventional instructional feedback model the feedback is received at the teacher/instructor side, whereas it is, on the author’s opinion, at the student side that has to be closed in order to be effective.