Throughout life, one often receives feedback in response to some kind of work done (e.g., completing homework, creating a sculpture, writing a report). In particular, feedback in academic settings is critical to students’ personal growth and intellectual development. Feedback can be classified by its content (amount and type of information presented) and source (who or where it comes from) when analyzed for its impact on learning. Despite past research, it is still unknown whether the verification of feedback is necessary and there are few if any studies investigating the contrast between feedback from a computer versus feedback from a person. 

To address this gap, the authors recruited 130 children between 6 to 8 years old in the United States and conducted online experiments with them. In the experimental sessions, children were required to complete four baseline measure items as warm up activities. Afterwards, the main training game took place, where they had the option to continue by typing “go” or ending the game by typing “stop”. During the game, children would solve math problems one at a time and receive corrective feedback in between each problem. There were a total of five sets (levels) of four problems, with each being harder than the preceding set (e.g., Level 1 asked “3 + __ = 10” while Level 5 asked “6 + 4 + 8 = 3 + __”). The focus of the study–feedback conditions–was divided into four types and randomly assigned to the children: computer alone and correct answer only, computer alone and correct answer with verification, computer with person and correct answer only, and computer with person and correct answer with verification. After the training game, the experimenter asked two questions regarding the feedback's helpfulness and source. The participants’ accuracy, strategy use, persistence, and resilience were analyzed by giving them a score based on their performance. Accuracy was measured based on how many questions they correctly answered. Strategy use was measured based on their numerical solutions using a previously established system (McNeil & Alibali, 2005). Persistence was measured based on how many questions they competed before stopping the game. Resilience was measured by multiplying the number of questions completed by the inverse of their accuracy score.

The results showed that in regards to feedback content, those who only received the correct answer employed more diverse strategies and were more persistent than those who received the correct answer with verification. The use of verification in feedback (correct answers displayed with a green check mark on the screen and an ascending tone while incorrect answers displayed a red X on the screen and a descending tone) was shown to have negative effects on performance. As for feedback sources, results showed how including verbal feedback from a person alongside computer feedback decreased children's accuracy during math problem-solving compared to computer feedback alone. All of this indicates the importance of providing feedback that minimizes the amount of verification to maximize persistence. Teachers should take this into account when carrying out educational activities with their students; they should be aware of the tone they use when delivering answers to their students. These results align with EPIC’s research on how instructional design can impact students’ learning in school. Future EPIC studies can dive deeper on feedback content and see how different types of verification cues may have more of an impact on students’ motivation than others.

If you want to learn more about Merrick and Fyfe’s (2024) study, check it out at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022096524000055?via%3Dihub

This post is written by Jessica Wang. 

Reference:

McNeil, N. M., & Alibali, M. W. (2005). Why won’t you change your mind? Knowledge of operational patterns hinders learning and performance on equations. Child Development, 76(4), 883–899. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2005.00884.x.

Merrick, M., & Fyfe, E. R. (2024). Right or wrong? How feedback content and source influence children’s mathematics performance and persistence. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 241, 105865.