Feedback Effects on Performance,Motivation and Mood: Are They Moderated by the Learner's Self-Concept?

This study tested the assumption that the effectiveness of feedback with regard to performance, motivation, and affect is moderated by the learners’ self-concept. A total of 72 sixth-graders completed a web-based interactive learning program. Half of the sample received feedback and the other half received no feedback. Differential feedback effects were detected. For students with a positive academic self-concept, feedback led to a decline in performance and in mood but an increase in effort. With regard to participants with a negative self-concept, feedback worked against the decrease in mood but did not increase performance and motivation. These findings support the claim that feedback effects should be assessed with regard to (1) multiple dimensions and (2) possible moderating variables.     

Peer assessment for learning from a social perspective: The influence of interpersonal variables and structural features

This paper reports a systematic literature review examining empirical studies on the effects of peer assessment for learning. Peer assessment is fundamentally a social process whose core activity is feedback given to and received from others, aimed at enhancing the performance of each individual group member and/or the group as a whole. This makes peer assessment an interpersonal and interactional process. Using this social perspective in order to study learning effects, we focus on the impact of the structural arrangement of peer assessment on learning, and the influence of interpersonal variables.The literature search, focusing on empirical studies measuring learning outcomes in a peer assessment setting, resulted in 15 studies conducted since 1990 dealing with effects (performance or perceived learning gains) of peer assessment. Our analysis reveals that, although peer assessment is a social process, interpersonal variables have hardly been studied; more specifically, they were measured in only 4 out of 15 studies. Moreover, they are not used to explain learning gains resulting from peer assessment. Finally, comparing the studies with respect to structural features reveals that, although the differences between the studies are significant, there seems to be no relation with the occurrence of learning benefits. The results of this review seem to indicate that research on peer assessment from a social perspective is still in its infancy and deserves more attention.     

An empirical review of anonymity effects in peer assessment,peer feedback,peer review,peer evaluation and peer grading

Abstract

Peer assessment has proven to have positive learning outcomes. Importantly, peer assessment is a social process and some claim that the use of anonymity might have advantages. However, the findings have not always been in the same direction. Our aims were: (a) to review the effects of using anonymity in peer assessment on performance, peer feedback content, peer grading accuracy, social effects and students’ perspective on peer assessment; and (b) to investigate the effects of four moderating variables (educational level, peer grading, assessment aids, direction of anonymity) in relation to anonymity. A literature search was conducted including five different terms related to peer assessment (e.g., peer feedback) and anonymity. Fourteen studies that used a control group or a within group design were found. The narrative review revealed that anonymous peer assessment seems to provide advantages for students’ perceptions about the learning value of peer assessment, delivering more critical peer feedback, increased self-perceived social effects, a slight tendency for more performance, especially in higher education and with less peer assessment aids. Some conclusions are that: (a) when implementing anonymity in peer assessment the instructional context and goals need to be considered, (b) existent empirical research is still limited, and (c) future research should employ stronger and more complex research designs.     

Understanding feedback: A learning theory perspective

This article aims to review literature on feedback to teachers. Because research has hardly focused on feedback among teachers, the review’s scope also includes feedback in classrooms. The review proposes that the effectiveness of feedback and feedback processes depend on the learning theory adhered to. Findings show that regardless of the learning theory effective feedback is goal- or task-directed, specific, and neutral. In addition, four rules of thumb were formulated that reflect what a majority of learning theories suggested as effective for learning. Finally, some feedback characteristics were considered effective from only one learning theory. The article shows that feedback processes are complicated and many variables influence and mediate the processes. Most reviewed studies did not investigate the whole feedback processes, and therefore, we suggest that future research is needed to further understand feedback.     

Site selection in school district research: a measure of effectiveness using hierarchical longitudinal growth models of performance

School districts in the USA are an active area of study in education research as findings have shown that some districts find success in certain contexts while others struggle. However, the research domain has had few actionable methods for site selection for in-depth qualitative studies. This study analyses all districts in the state of Ohio (n = 610) from 2005–2006 through 2012–2013 using a two-level hierarchical linear growth model to identify districts that significantly outperform or underperform background and demographic variables in the Ohio Performance Index (PI) Score, factors outside the influence of the district administration. The aim of the study is to provide a framework for selecting comparison and contrast sites for district effectiveness research (DER). Additionally, the model captures school-level variance within districts controlling for average district performance. Fifteen outperforming districts are named as potential sites for in-depth qualitative studies of district effects in comparison to similar districts at the norm.     

What are effective strategies to support pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in mainstream primary schools? Findings from a systematic review of research

This article describes the processes and findings of a systematic review of research into the effectiveness of strategies to support pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) in mainstream primary schools. A search for studies carried out from 1975–1999 resulted in 265 citations, of which 96 were found to be within the scope of the review topic. Of these, 27 reported on 28 research studies, which could address the review question. Findings from these 28 studies indicated that a number of strategies, based on a range of theoretical frameworks, showed some positive impacts on pupil behaviour. However, the review highlighted a dearth of good quality research on strategy effectiveness. There is a need for higher quality research into strategies currently being used in schools. Practitioners, parents and children should all be involved in setting the parameters for interventions and research concerned with EBD.     

On the value of data-based decision making in education: The evidence from six intervention studies

Although some studies have investigated the impact of data-based decision making (DBDM) on student achievement, the overall findings are not straightforward, because of the studies’ methodological flaws and their mixed results. This article first presents a breakdown of the DBDM concept as applied in the Dutch context. Next, it explains the theoretical foundations of DBDM in feedback and goal-setting theory and then discusses various factors influencing DBDM effectiveness. The results of six Dutch DBDM interventions with an explicit focus on student achievement effects of DBDM and with strong research designs are then presented. Significant positive effects on student performance as measured by means of standardized tests are reported for four interventions. The interpretation of student progress data from student monitoring systems does not seem to be problematic for teachers, if they are deliberately trained for it, but teachers do find it difficult to translate student progress data into tailor-made instruction.     

Getting along with classmates in regular schools: a review of the effects of integration on the development of social relationships

The objective of this review is to find out what knowledge is available regarding the effects of integrating pupils the sensory, motor and/or mental disabilities is regular schools. This review is restricted to the effects of integration on the development of social contacts with classmates without disabilities. Analysis of 14 studies revealed contradictory conclusions: no effects were reported in some studies, while in others researchers found that special needs pupils in regular schools acquired more social contacts and friendships, and that regular and special schools differed in this respect. Only a few studies revealed negative effects of integration.     

The Additional Effects of Process and Outcome Feedback Following Brief In‐service Teacher Training

Three primary school teachers attended a half‐day, in‐service training workshop which targeted instructional and managerial behaviours identified as being functionally related to students’ academic engaged behaviours in class. Following the workshop, daily observations showed only temporary changes in the teachers’ and their students’ behaviours with trends back towards baseline measures. After this period of ‘no feedback’, three conditions of in‐class performance feedback were introduced in different sequences to each teacher: outcome feedback (based on measures of a sample of their students’ academic engaged behaviour during lessons), process feedback (based on measures of the teachers’ own instructional behaviours), and a combination of both outcome and process feedback.

A time‐series, multiple baseline across subjects design was employed which allowed comparison of measures of teachers’ and students’ behaviours during the immediate post‐workshop period and during periods of the three types of feedback. The results showed that the introduction of performance feedback had the immediate (and cumulative) effect of increasing the behaviours targeted in the workshop to high rates that were maintained even when feedback was withdrawn. There were, however, no differences in the comparative efficacy of outcome, process or outcome/process combination effects.

The study builds upon existing research which has shown performance feedback to be an essential component of effective professional development and staff training packages that target workplace behaviour change. It also adds to the limited research that has examined the efficacy of different types of performance feedback and suggests other variables, such as who presents the feedback, may be important.     

国内近十年二语写作书面反馈研究之述评

书面反馈是国外二语写作研究的热点,近年来在国内也兴起了一股研究热潮。本文从该研究的发展阶段、反馈类型及其有效性和教师反馈与同伴反馈之比较三个方面对近十年发表在核心期刊的相关文章展开述评,指出已有研究的不足和未来的研究方向。     

Inducing mind sets in self‐regulated learning with motivational information

The way students perceive a learning climate (e.g. controlling or stimulating) is significantly influenced by feedback and assessment. However, at present much is unclear about the relation between feedback and motivational state. More specifically, the interplay with student characteristics is unclear. Since there is a strong increase of group work, the central research question is what are the effects of positive, neutral or negative feedback presented to collaborating teams of students, on students’ intrinsic motivation, performance and on group processes? One hundred thirty‐eight higher education students participated in this study. There were no significant differences in performance across conditions. Multi‐level analysis enabled a detailed comparison between groups and individual members of groups. Amongst others, it was found that feelings of competence facilitate the effect of positive feedback at the group level, which suggests that positive feedback boosts interest especially in groups of highly competent students.     

Self-regulation of peer feedback quality aspects through different dimensions of experience within prior peer feedback assignments

Although peer review is a widely-used pedagogical technique, its value depends upon the quality of the reviews that students produce, and much research remains to be done to systematically study the nature, causes, and consequences of variation in peer review quality. We propose a new framework that conceptualizes five larger dimensions of peer review quality and then present a study that investigated three specific peer review quality constructs in a large dataset and further explored how these constructs change through different types of self-regulation peer reviewing experiences. Peer review data across multiple assignments were analyzed from 2,092 undergraduate students enrolled in one of three offerings of a biology course at a large public research university in the United States. Peer review quality was measured in terms of comment amount, comment accuracy, and rating accuracy; the measures of reviewing experience focused upon self-regulated learning factors such as practice, feedback, others’ modeling, and relative performance. Meta-correlation (for testing reliability, separability, and stability) and meta-regression (as a time-series analysis for testing the relationship of changes across assignments in reviewing quality with experiences as reviewer and reviewee) are used to establish the robustness of effects and meaningful variation of effects across course offerings and assignments. Results showed that there were three meaningful review quality constructs (i.e., were measured reliably, separable, and semi-stable over time). Further, all three showed changes in response to previous reviewer and reviewee experiences, but only feedback helpfulness, in particular, showed effects of all four examined types of self-regluation experiences (practice, feedback, others’ modeling, and relative performance). The findings suggest that instructors can improve review quality by providing comment prompt scaffolds that lead to longer comments as well as by matching authors with similarly performing reviewers.     

Feedback providing improvement strategies and reflection on feedback use: Effects on students’ writing motivation, process, and performance

This study investigated the effects of feedback providing improvement strategies and a reflection assignment on students’ writing motivation, process, and performance. Students in the experimental feedback condition (n = 41) received feedback including improvement strategies, whereas students in the control feedback condition (n = 41) received feedback without improvement strategies. Within each feedback condition, half of the students received a reflection assignment on feedback use and the revision (experimental reflection condition), while the other half received a reflection assignment on feedback perception (control reflection condition). Results indicated that in the experimental feedback condition writing performance gained from the control reflection assignment, while in the control feedback condition it gained from the experimental reflection assignment. Improvement strategies negatively predicted self-efficacy beliefs, especially when initial self-efficacy beliefs were low, and positively predicted planning/revising. Reflections on feedback use and the revision positively predicted mastery goal when mastery goal initially was low or moderate.     

Interventions in general education for students with disabilities: a systematic review

Implementing effective interventions in general education increases the chances of success for students with disabilities. Often the effectiveness of interventions is not known. The aim of this review was to investigate what interventions are used in general education and what is known about their effectiveness so that educational institutions can exchange best practices and students with disabilities have better opportunities for successful participation in general education. A systematic literature search was conducted in four databases. Three investigators assessed the relevance of the studies identified. In only half of the studies is information on the effectiveness of interventions reported. Due to enormous variety in the types of interventions, effect measures, disability groups, and focus on different types of education, we chose to focus on reading interventions for improving the reading skills of students with reading and/or learning disabilities. Other interventions are shortly mentioned. All of the eight reading interventions found seem to have positive influences on reading skills. However, the methodological quality in some studies was low. Still, recommendations for actual interventions in general education are made. Measuring the effectiveness of interventions systematically and publishing the information helps others to implement effective interventions without having to reinvent them.     

Affective-motivational effects of performance feedback in computer-based assessment: Does error message complexity matter?

The impact of computer-based performance feedback on students’ affective-motivational state may be very different, depending on the positive or negative direction of the feedback message and its specific content. This experiment investigated whether more elaborated error messages improve students’ affective-motivational response to negative (i.e., corrective) feedback. We systematically varied the presence and complexity of corrective feedback messages (1 × 4 between-subjects design) and analyzed the effects of the provided feedback on students’ emotions, task-related perceived usefulness, and expectancy-value beliefs. University students (N = 439) worked on a low-stakes test with 12 constructed-response geometry tasks. They received either no feedback or different complexities of immediate corrective feedback after incorrect responses (i.e., Knowledge of Results [KR], Knowledge of Correct Response [KCR], or Elaborated Feedback [EF]), paired with immediate confirmatory KCR feedback after correct responses (i.e., confirming their response). Our data showed that students’ task-level performance moderated the emotional impact of feedback (i.e., beneficial effects after correct responses; detrimental effects after incorrect responses). Students’ performance further moderated several feedback effects on students’ expectancy-value beliefs. Regarding error message complexity, we found that students reported higher levels of positive emotions after receiving EF or KCR compared to KR, while only EF decreased students' level of negative emotions compared to KR and increased students' task-related perceived usefulness compared to all other groups. Overall, our results suggest that performance feedback is likely to improve students’ affective-motivational state when the feedback confirms a correct response. Moreover, when reporting an error, EF (or KCR messages) were more beneficial to affective-motivational outcomes than simple KR notifications.     

学生对计算机辅助反馈策略的态度(英文)

本研究调查了计算机辅助反馈策略对大学技术教育课程的影响。具体来说,研究探讨了计算机辅助反馈策略"对错反馈"(Knowledge of Responses,简称KCOR)和"正确答案反馈"(Knowledge of Correct Re-sponses,简称KCR)的有效性,并与"无反馈"(No Feedback)的学生的学习态度进行了比较。三组学生被分配到三个条件之一:KOR,KCR和NR(对照组)。通过四个星期的基于网络的教学实验,研究者获得学习者对计算机辅助反馈教学系略的态度。结果表明,学生对三种反馈显示出相同的态度。计算机辅助反馈策略可能是促进学习的可行的选择。     

Effectiveness of student-rating feedback for improving college instruction: A meta-analysis of findings

This article applied meta-analytic methodology to integrate findings from 22 comparisons of the effectiveness of student-rating feedback at the college level. On the average, feedback had a modest but significant effect on improving instruction. Instructors receiving mid-semester feedback averaged. 16 of a rating point higher on end-of-semester overall ratings than did instructors receiving no mid-semester feedback. This corresponded to a gain of over one-third of a standard-deviation unit, or a percentile gain of 15 points. The effects of student-rating feedback were accentuated when augmentation or consultation accompanied the ratings. Other study features, such as the length of time available to implement changes and the use of normative data, did not produce different effect sizes.The research reported here was conducted while the author was at the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, The University of Michigan.     

Effects of Feedback on the Academic Engaged Time of Behaviour Disordered Learners

Abstract This study investigated the relative effects of different combinations of feedback on the behaviours of two subjects labelled ‘behaviour disordered’. In addition, the relationship between academic engaged behaviour and performance (assessed by measures of amount completed and accuracy) was also analysed. The results revealed that there was a positive relationship between the amount of time a subject spends on task and the number of tasks completed. In addition, the results showed that there was not a positive relationship between the amount of time a student spends on a task and accuracy on that task. The relative effectiveness of the feedback procedures was substantiated. The implications of these results were that the provision of feedback when a subject is off‐task will be most effective in terms of increasing the subject's on‐task behaviour and the amount of tasks that the subject completed. This research demonstrated that increased on‐task behaviour has positive effects on productivity.     

Strategy and performance in cooperative education programs

This study examined the nature of strategic planning practices and their performance effects in 285 cooperative education programs in U.S. institutions of higher education. Consistent with the results of previous research in for-profit firms, involvement in strategic planning was associated with positive performance outcomes on some criteria but not others. Additionally, an examination of performance effects using Porter's (1980) typology indicated that different strategies were associated with different program outcomes.     

论有效重铸的特征

学术界普遍认为纠正性反馈对二语习得是有积极作用的。重铸已经被证明为使用频率最高的纠正性反馈方法,它的作用在二语习得研究方面受到越来越多的关注。我们对重铸的特征及其有效性的认识不断扩展,目前普遍认为,重铸的有效性受制于多种变量。本文通过文献研究,尝试探究有效重铸的特征并就如何进行有效反馈提出建议。