Research demonstrates that the teacher-student relationship is essential for students with special educational needs. This article investigates how pre-service special educators (n = 74) perceive teachers’ relational competence, as manifested in their relations with students exhibiting behavioral difficulties. The data comprises educators’ written analyses of teacher-student interactions simulated through digital video, both before and after being provided with explicit criteria on teachers’ relational competence. The findings reveal a change in the educators’ perceptions as they shift from a focus on teaching strategies and the learning environment toward an awareness of teacher-student interaction, and from the teacher’s management of problematic student behavior toward an acknowledgment of the communicative and socio-emotional challenges in contexts involving students with different needs.

National goals and performance standards were introduced in Sweden during the 1990sas part of a curriculum reform. The intention was to detect shortcomings among studentsand provide support to those students who did not reach the passing grade in one (orseveral) subject/s. Despite this reform, approximately one-fourth of the students do notattain a passing grade in all subjects. This study therefore investigates the supportprovided to low-achieving students in Swedish compulsory school. A questionnairefocusing on support in science studies was distributed to students in grade 9 (N =1731), and data was analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis and structural equationmodeling. Findings show that low-achieving students perceive that they primarily receive“simplifying support,” which involves the lowering of expectations and limiting ofstudents’ opportunities to learn. “Scaffolding support,” which involves changes to practicesand holding the same standards for all students, seems to be mainly provided toboys, regardless of achievement level.

In Sweden, where this study is situated, grades are high stakes for students. Grades are the only criteria used for selecting students as they leave compulsory school and apply for upper-secondary school. When students apply for higher education, selection is also made based on the “Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test”, but a minimum of one third of the seats (often more) are based on grades. Given that it is the individual teacher who synthesizes students’ performances into a grade, and that the reliability of teachers’ grades has been questioned (e.g., Swedish National Agency of Education (SNAE), 2019), this is a problematic situation which can potentially have a significant influence on the lives of thousands of students each year. Measures have been taken to increase the agreement in teachers’ grading, most recently by legally requiring that teachers in primary and secondary education take results from national tests “into consideration” when grading. This relatively loose strategy of taking test results “into consideration” has not yet yielded any observable change in teachers’ grades, however, and there is still a large discrepancy between teacher-assigned grades and test results for most subjects (SNAE, 2019)1. For example, the proportion of students whose grades correspond to their test results varies between 61-73 percent in the various subjects. Furthermore, it is more common that the teacher-assigned grades are higher than the test results, as compared to the other way around (with the exception of English as a foreign language, EFL). There are also gender differences, where girls to a slightly higher degree than boys receive grades that are higher in comparison with their test results. There are also large variations between schools. The question in focus here is how this difference between teacher-assigned grades and test results originate and why it persists, which is investigated from a teacher perspective.

Background: At our dental education, the examination failure rate amongst students has increased, resulting in subsequent involuntary dropouts. One of the main problems seems to be that the students struggle with taking the necessary responsibility for their learning, as required by the problem‐based learning (PBL) methodology.

Aim: To describe the background to, and the transition process from, pure PBL to case‐based teaching and learning (CBT) with flipped classroom seminars at the dental programme at [anonymised for peer review].

Methods: In this position paper, we describe our observed problems with the PBL methodology, as implemented at this faculty, and the potential benefits of a change towards CBT. The current implementation of CBT is presented, along with educational research supporting the choice of activities.

Results: Tentative findings are that the flipped classroom seminars and the clearer instructions appear to be successful with higher levels of activity, engagement and attendance amongst the students, and the students have evaluated the seminars as very good learning activities.

Conclusion: Tentative findings suggest that the current implementation of CBT may be a fruitful way of teaching in dental education today. Most of the teaching staff have been reawakened to teaching, and as a result, the content of the courses are being reviewed and improved. The students appreciate that what is expected of them has been made clearer and that there is a variety of learning activities.

A supportive relationship between teachers and students has been shown to have positive effects on students’ performance and social development. Preservice teachers’ relational competence is, however, an unexplored area. The purpose of this study is to contribute to educational research about relational competence in teacher education by introducing a Swedish project which focuses on interpersonal aspects. The study has three parts. In the theoretical part, a conceptualization of teachers’ relational competence using Thomas Scheff’s theory of interpersonal relationships is outlined. In the empirical (pilot) part, a methodology for prompting preservice teachers’ analyses of teacher–student relationships is described, as well as a thematic analysis of their responses. The theoretical conceptualization is then used together with the empirical data in the third part, in order to identify development needs of preservice teachers in terms of relational competence. According to the conceptualization, relational competence includes three sub-concepts: communicative, differentiation, and socio-emotional competence. From the analysis of preservice students’ texts, the article identifies development needs in relation to the three sub-concepts. The concluding discussion focuses on lessons learned from the study regarding how to promote teacher students’ relational competence.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of increased explicitness ofassessment criteria on students’ performance and motivation. Successive levels ofexplicitness, from feedback based on (implicit) criteria to a combination of exemplarsand explicit criteria, were implemented in eight classes at four schools (n = 153 students,12–13 years old) during four teaching sequences in science. Data was collected on: (a)student performance through knowledge tests, (b) student motivation (self-efficacy, goalorientations, and self-regulation) through questionnaires, and (c) perceived clarity of goalsand criteria through “exit tickets.” Findings show that student performance improvedfrom pre-, to post-tests at all schools (effect sizes from 0.82 to 1.38), but not in relationto the level of explicitness. There was also an increase in self-efficacy for low-performingstudents, but, again, not in relation to explicitness. These changes are instead assumedto be an effect of the formative feedback provided as part of the intervention. The onlychange related to the level of explicitness, was an increase in self-regulation scores byhigh-performing students when having access to both exemplars and explicit criteria.Findings therefore suggest that low to medium levels of explicitness in assessment haveno discernable effects on students’ performance or motivation.

In 1994, a major curriculum reform was implemented in Sweden. A norm-referenced grading system was replaced by national goals and performance standards. The intention was that students not reaching the minimum standards would be identified and support provided. This optimistic vision has not been entirely realized. In 2017, 25.9% of all Swedish students graduated from compulsory school without receiving a passing grade in all subjects. To understand how students at risk of not receiving passing grades are identified and provided with support, interviews have been conducted at 10 Swedish schools. Findings suggest that the schools in the sample are successful in identifying students in need of support, but not necessarily in identifying the specific needs of individual students. The identification may also differ between students with learning difficulties and students with behavioral problems. Furthermore, the findings suggest that schools and teachers in the sample have different approaches when providing support to low-achieving students. This support can be categorized as supporting and relational, simplifying, or general and practical. These approaches, in turn, may provide different opportunities for students’ engagement with schoolwork and eventually their performance. By discussing the findings in relation to self-determination theory and self-efficacy, the combination of challenging tasks and scaffolding support, as well as providing structure in combination with caring relationships, are identified as important facilitators of increased student motivation and effort.

Starting from the seminal work of Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner, peers have been conceptualized as potential mediators in students’ learning and development. In recent decades, there has been an increasing interest in how students’ learning can be fostered through involving them in assessment via self- and peer assessment. Both self- and peer assessment are now well-established fields of research with the following main lines of work: (a) the reliability/validity of self- and peer assessment scores; and (b) the effects of such assessment on students’ learning, which have mostly been studied after the emergence of research on formative assessment. Two more topics that have recently received more interest are: (c) the effects of self- and peer assessment on self-regulated learning and metacognition and (d) the role of psychological and social factors in self- and peer assessment. Consequently, researchers have become interested in the type of information that students exchange in peer assessment situations, with research focused on whether the quality of such information can lead to improved learning compared to just providing a score (i.e., peer scoring). This information is known as peer feedback. There has been an increased interest in peer feedback – a trend reflected in the publication of dissertations that focus on various aspects of peer feedback. The aim of this chapter is to explore the concept of peer feedback, presenting the results of the main dissertations and discussing the key empirical themes that have been investigated.

Rubrics are assessment instruments designed to assist in identifying and evaluating qualitative differences in student performance. Research into scoring rubrics has shown that they can serve two purposes: (1) aid assessors in achieving higher levels of consistency when scoring performance tasks and (2) promote learning and/or improve instruction by making assessment expectations explicit and aiding the feedback process. In this chapter we summarise research on the formative use of rubrics, in order to identify how the use and design of rubrics may be optimised for the purpose of supporting student learning in an environment that often stresses independence and management of own learning. The presentation is organised around two different pathways through which rubrics may support student learning. These are through (a) facilitating the understanding and use of feedback and through (b) supporting students’ self-regulated learning. We also analyse what is known about the implementation of rubrics in higher education, with a particular focus on more sustained and widespread implementations. The implications of these findings for both practice and future research on rubrics are discussed.