Learning from mistakes, or not. Teachers’ error orientation and mistake-handling strategies.

This study investigates teachers’ beliefs about errors role in learning and the relevant strategies used in classroom to handle them. Literature concerning this topic includes several works on the analysis of teachers’ mistake-handling strategies, but only a few studies explore teachers’ error beliefs and the relationships with practices. In the present work, firstly teachers’ beliefs have been analysed through an adaptation of the Error Orientation Questionnaire filled in by 60 high-school teachers and secondly 3 math teachers’ classes have been videotaped and mistake-handling strategies were coded. Cluster analysis of this data revealed groupings which were based on 2 opposite error orientations (positive vs negative) and the analysis of the videotaped lessons suggested the higher effectiveness of the positive attitude on students’ learning. 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. Although this group of teachers shown better practices, they still perceived high strain in front of errors. This result demonstrates that error meaning still maintains ambiguity. Even if further validations of the scale are needed, interesting practical implications are suggested by this study, like new topics for teachers’ training (e.g. teachers’ worries about mistakes’ onset; new instructional strategies that emphasize error learning potential).