Learning from mistakes, or not. An analysis of teachers’ error beliefs and mistake-handling strategies through questionnaire and video.

Educational literature underlines the importance of error in learning experiences and its potential to create socio-cognitive conflicts in learners. Several studies have analysed strategies used by teachers to handle students’ errors. Some of these have focused on cultural aspects of educational practices, while others have identified errors-handling strategies that are more effective in term of student learning. Only a few studies, instead, have explored teachers’ beliefs about errors and the relationships between beliefs and practices. This study investigates teachers’ beliefs about errors’ role in learning and the strategies used in classrooms to handle students’ errors. Firstly, teachers’ beliefs have been analysed through an adapted version of the Error Orientation Questionnaire (by Rybowiak et al., 1999). The questionnaire was completed by sixty teachers of primary and middle school. Secondly, three math teachers’ classes were videotaped and errors-handling strategies were coded. Cluster analysis was performed on the data to identify respondents’ typologies and two clusters of teachers based on two opposite error orientations (positive versus negative) were identified. Subsequently, an exploratory analysis of videotaped lessons suggested the higher effectiveness on students’ learning of a positive attitude towards errors. In fact, teachers with positive error orientation used more adaptive strategies and had higher levels of mastery achievement goal, self-efficacy, and mastery learning practices. Moreover, the results show that teachers with positive error orientation perceive also a high strain in front of errors. This study reveals that teachers still feel a certain ambiguity toward errors and their role in learning and it suggests the necessity of professional development centered on this topic. In fact, teachers with positive error orientation do not use only better educational practices, but they also show students how to handle errors in an efficient way. Therefore, this research shows very interesting practical implications. First, even if further validations of the scale are needed, studying teachers’ error orientation gives important information on their error-handling strategies. Second, videotaping has emerged as a very useful instrument for educational practices’ analysis, as it makes possible a deep study of classroom discourse practices. Moreover, it offers very interesting and concrete topics to discuss with teachers in professional development context. In fact, it allows observers to analyse deeply their educational strategies by slowing down the natural conversational dynamics. In conclusion, this study offers interesting ideas for teachers’ professional development programmes, in which video could be used to develop teachers’ reflection on their practices and, consequently, help them to develop new professional skills.