# Presentation: 461058

## PRINCIPLES OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE IN EDUCATION 

- SELF-GENERATION,
- ERRORS, & FEEDBACK
- Janet Metcalfe
- Columbia University

- IES  2006

## MS 143 and the Columbia University CASL project

- Thanks go to IES for sponsoring this research.

## Thanks go especially to Lisa Son, Bridgid Finn and Nate Kornell

## THE GOAL OF THIS PROJECT IS TO USE PRINCIPLES OF  COGNITIVE SCIENCE TO DEVELOP A PROGRAM THAT CAN BE BROADLY USED TO HELP STUDENTS STUDY. 

- Why do they need it?
- self study is vulnerable to metacognitive illusions
- (2) certain effective strategies are difficult to implement on one’s own

## BACKGROUND

- The Bronx project

## Slide 6

## Spanish-speaking children learning English vocabulary

## Slide 8

## Even Columbia students showed substantial gains, though not as high as the at-risk children. 

## Slide 10

## GOAL:  TO ISOLATE COMPONENTS IN THE ORIGINAL TASK THAT ENHANCED OR HARMED LEARNING.   

- Generation
- Errors
- Feedback

## SELF GENERATION

## To our surprise, we, several times, failed to find beneficial effects of self generation.    

- To our surprise, we, several times, failed to find beneficial effects of self generation.

## There was no difference between the control condition and either generation condition.  

- There was no difference between the control condition and either generation condition.

## With Columbia students, there was also no generation effect. 

- With Columbia students, there was also no generation effect.

## So, we tried again, with slight modifications. 

## Bronx SIXTH GRADE children. 

- NO GENERATION EFFECT

## Columbia students

- NO GENERATION EFFECT.

## WHY NO GENERTION EFFECT ?

- Our hypotheses were
- WE GAVE THE CUE FIRST ALONE WITH A 1 SECOND PAUSE WHICH ALLOWED PEOPLE TO GENERATE EVEN IN THE READ CONDITION.
- 2. THE GENERATE AND READ ITEMS WERE MIXED WITHIN LIST

## If we alter the conditions so people do not 

- If we alter the conditions so people do not
- generate in the ‘read’ condition, we get a
- generation effect.

## GENERATE AND READ WERE NOW BETWEEN LIST, AND THE CUE AND TARGET WERE PRESENTED TOGETHER. 

- GENERATE AND READ WERE NOW BETWEEN LIST, AND THE CUE AND TARGET WERE PRESENTED TOGETHER.

## THIS PRODUCED A LARGE 

- THIS PRODUCED A LARGE
- GENERATE EFFECT

## SIMILARLY, WITH COLUMBIA STUDENTS 

- LEARNING GRE WORDS

## WE FOUND A LARGE GENERATE EFFECT 

- WE FOUND A LARGE GENERATE EFFECT

## PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

-  SELF-GENERATION OF ANSWERS PRODUCES
-  LARGE LEARNING BENEFITS.

## IN A CLASSROOM SITUATION, WHERE ONE CAN’T HAVE EVERY STUDENT GENERATE ALL THE TIME, ONE CAN GET GENERATION BENEFITS BY DOING WHAT WE HAD DONE IN THE FIRST SET OF EXPERIMENTS: 

- LEAVING A PAUSE BEFORE GIVING THE ANSWER
- AND
- (2) MIXING IN QUESTIONS TO INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS, WHO MUST THEN GENERATE THE ANSWERS THEMSELVES, FROM TIME TO TIME.

## ERRORS

## We observed no effect of whether  we forced people to generate an answer (which resulted in a huge number of errors) or whether we allowed them to generate only if they felt confident in their answers (which resulted in few errors). 

- We observed no effect of whether  we forced people to generate an answer (which resulted in a huge number of errors) or whether we allowed them to generate only if they felt confident in their answers (which resulted in few errors).

## NO EFFFECT OF ERRORS

- BRONX 6TH GRADE

## AGAIN, NO EFFECT OF MAKING ERRORS, 

- AGAIN, NO EFFECT OF MAKING ERRORS,
- COLUMBIA STUDENTS

## Bronx SIXTH GRADE AGAIN

- NO EFFECT OF ERRORS

## Columbia students: NO EFFECT OF ERRORS 

## However, it seems like committing an error should be problematic.  

- So we ran two more experiments directed at errors specifically.

## Bronx

- Children were either forced to generate--producing many errors or told to generate, but not to guess,  producing few, in a between list design.  They were given immediate feedback.  Errors made no difference.

## Columbia

- The same experiment was run with more difficult materials.
- Again, there was no effect.

## PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

- We have no evidence to support the contention that making errors is harmful, as long as corrective feedback is given,
- even though we have now sought such evidence 6 times.

## FEEDBACK

## So far, I have shown results only when feedback was given.  

- But, we also had no feedback conditions.

## IN EVERY CASE, FEEDBACK HELPED. 

## Slide 40

## Slide 41

## Slide 42

## In all three experiments, the effects of initial feedback also held up in the second test. 

## In the final experiment we investigated the issue of how important it is to give immediate, as compared to delayed, feedback.

## There were five conditions:  

- Immediate feedback		immediate test
- No feedback				immediate test
- Immediate feedback		delayed test
- Delayed feedback			delayed test
- No feedback				delayed test

## The experiment was run over four days. On the fourth day we did the delayed test. 

## Slide 47

## The design of this experiment allowed us to look at the effect of immediate versus delayed feedback, holding constant feedback lag to test (by only using the middle sessions). 

## Slide 49

## WE HAVE DONE A REPLICATION STUDY WITH GRADE 6 CHILDREN AT THE SCHOOL AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY AND FOUND SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER FINAL TEST PERFORMANCE WHEN FEEDBACK WAS GIVEN AT A DELAY RATHER THAN IMMEDIATELY. 

## PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

**PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS**
- We DO need to give feedback, and good feedback that is very specific and that the person fully learns and understands.
- BUT, we may not have to give that feedback immediately.

##               Conclusions

- (1) Having students self generate the answers rather than passively presenting the answers to them has a large effect.
- (2) It makes no difference if the person makes errors in
- attempting to generate their answers, as long as they are given corrective  feedback.
- (3) Feedback matters enormously.
- (4) It may not matter whether  the feedback is given immediately or at a delay--indeed, delayed feedback may be better.