Effects of timing and level of integration of formative feedback in question- answering for concept learning

Resumen

Following previous literature within the context of feedback instruction (Bangert-Downs et al., 2013; Butler & Roediger, 2008; Butler & Winne, 1995; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Kapp et al., 2015; Karpicke, & Roediger, 2007, 2008; Llorens, et al., 2014; Máñez, Vidal-Abarca & Martínez, 2016; Máñez, Vidal-Abarca, Martínez & Kendeu, 2017; Newman, Williams & Hiller, 1974; Narciss, 2013; Narciss et al., 2014; van der Kleij, Eggen, Timmers, & Veldkamp, 2012; van der Kleij, et al., 2015; Vidal-Abarca et al., 2017; Vidal-Abarca, Martínez, Ferrer & García, 2017), the general objective of the present thesis is the evaluation of the effectiveness of a formative feedback question-answering procedure that provides feedback in an immediate and delayed manner. Students read a text in Sciences and answered inferential questions while having the text available. In addition, the level of integration of the elaborative feedback message is specifically designed to provide students with a relation of the most relevant ideas from the text in an attempt to help them comprehend the learning content in a more coherent manner. Study 1 analyzes the impact of a question-answering procedure that provides feedback in an immediate (question by question) or delayed manner (after the completion of four questions) compared to a no-feedback condition where students were forced to rereading a text. Dependent measures included the student´s probability to correct errors, response certitude estimations, question-answering performance and online behaviour on a sample of undergraduate university students. Additionally, Study 2 dives into the issue of what type of level of integration of the elaborative feedback message is more beneficial for concept learning when provided in an immediate, delayed summative or delayed integrative form. In this study, the effects of the task level (i.e., low versus high-level) and further individual differences in previous background knowledge of students are considered and discussed under the light of the recent literature in reading comprehension and learning from the text (Gilabert, Martínez, & Vidal-Abarca, 2005; Le Bigot & Rouet, 2007; McNamara & Kintsch, 1996; Priebe, Keenan, & Miller, 2011; O´ Really & Sabatini, 2013; Ozuru et al., 2007; Salmerón, Kintsch & Cañas, 2006; Vidal-Abarca & SanJosé, 1998; Clemens et al., 2018). Conclusions and limitations embrace some of the most critical points on the role of formative feedback for concept learning and question-answering with an available text. Educational implications are further discussed.