Principle 04 · After answering
Feedback: why show the correct answer after every question
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Short answer
Feedback is the information people get about their answer. A 2020 meta-analysis of 435 studies found a medium effect of feedback on learning, which depends heavily on the information it carries. In computer-based feedback, explaining the answer tends to work better than just saying right or wrong.
What it is
After answering a question, people can get information about their answer: whether they were right, what the correct answer was and why. That is feedback.
In a multiple-choice test without feedback, someone who picks a wrong alternative may walk away convinced it was right. Feedback closes that door.
What the research says
A medium effect that depends on the information
A meta-analysis of 435 studies, with 994 effect sizes and more than 61,000 participants, found a medium effect of feedback on learning (d = 0.48). The impact depended heavily on the information conveyed, and was larger for cognitive and motor skill outcomes than for motivation and behaviour.
Wisniewski, Zierer and Hattie (2020), Frontiers in Psychology.
Explaining teaches more than right or wrong
A network meta-analysis of 77 experimental studies, with 163 effect sizes, compared types of computer-based feedback. Elaborated feedback, which explains the answer, was the most likely to be the most effective, both for recall and for applying knowledge to new situations. Telling learners only whether they were right or wrong was less effective than the other types.
Mertens, Finn and Lindner (2022), Journal of Educational Psychology.
The d value measures the difference between those who got feedback and those who did not, in standard deviations: the larger it is, the bigger the advantage.
Where the idea comes from. Butler and Roediger (2008) showed that feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing. Hattie and Timperley (2007) described feedback as one of the most powerful influences on learning, but with an effect that can be positive or negative depending on its type. And with plausible alternatives, multiple-choice questions can trigger productive retrieval (Little, Bjork, Bjork and Angello, 2012).
A wrong answer left uncorrected can stick. A wrong answer with an explanation teaches.
Why it works
- It corrects before the mistake settles in. Anyone who got it wrong sees the right answer straight away.
- It confirms what people know. Someone who was right by a narrow margin learns that they were right, and why.
- It adds context. A short explanation links the answer to the rule, the product or the real situation.
Because the effect depends on the type of feedback, it is worth getting right: focused on the question, short, clear and with an explanation, not just a right or wrong.
How the game applies it
You get an email asking for your mailbox password. What do you do?
21- After every question, the correct answer and a short explanation appear, whether the player was right or wrong. The game never shows only right or wrong, the type of feedback the 2022 meta-analysis found less effective.
- Wrong answers are checked against quality rules so they are plausible.
- A missed question comes back soon, while the explanation is still fresh. See spaced repetition.
References
- Mertens, U., Finn, B. & Lindner, M. A. (2022). Effects of computer-based feedback on lower- and higher-order learning outcomes: a network meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(8), 1743-1772. doi:10.1037/edu0000764
- Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K. & Hattie, J. (2020). The power of feedback revisited: a meta-analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 3087. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03087
- Little, J. L., Bjork, E. L., Bjork, R. A. & Angello, G. (2012). Multiple-choice tests exonerated, at least of some charges: fostering test-induced learning and avoiding test-induced forgetting. Psychological Science, 23(11), 1337-1344. doi:10.1177/0956797612443370
- Butler, A. C. & Roediger, H. L. (2008). Feedback enhances the positive effects and reduces the negative effects of multiple-choice testing. Memory & Cognition, 36(3), 604-616. doi:10.3758/MC.36.3.604
- Hattie, J. & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112. doi:10.3102/003465430298487