14:30 - 16:00
Tue-Main hall - Z2b-Poster 2--58
Tue-Poster 2
Room: Main hall - Z2b
Influence of simple and elaborative feedback on practice tests
Tue-Main hall - Z2b-Poster 2-5801
Presented by: Magdalena Pucher
Magdalena Pucher 1, Christine Johannes 2, Annika Lenk-Blochowitz 1, Svenja Korber 2, Marcel Biendl 1, Peter Brüge 2, Judith Schweppe 1
1 University of Passau, 2 University of Erfurt
Taking a practice test during the learning phase improves performance on a delayed final test - a phenomenon known as the testing effect. The testing effect is stronger when feedback is provided. However, while most studies provide the correct answer or simply use a restudy phase as feedback, it is unclear whether elaborative feedback has additional positive effects. Our experiment therefore investigated how different types of feedback affect learning through testing. Each condition involved reading a text and taking a multiple-choice practice test. The type of feedback was varied: The first group received no specific feedback, the second group correct-answer feedback, and the third group correct-answer feedback plus elaborative feedback. All groups had the opportunity to restudy the text afterwards. After a delay of one week, participants answered the same multiple-choice questions as in the practice test and took a short-answer test. Results indicated that both elaborative and correct-answer feedback led to better performance in the final multiple-choice test compared to restudying. However, feedback did not have a significant impact on the short-answer test. For those parts of the short-answer questions that had not been previously addressed by the practice questions, there was even a tendency for a negative effect of specific feedback. To test whether this was due to specifics of the materials, we are currently running a follow-up experiment in which we adapted the materials and constructed the short-answer questions such that we can systematically compare aspects that have and have not been addressed by the practice questions.
Keywords: testing effect, retrieval practice, feedback