Students’ interaction with and appreciation of automated informative tutoring feedback

Abstract

Computer-aided formative assessment can be used to enhance a learning process, for instance, by providing feedback. There are many design choices for delivering feedback that lead to a feedback strategy. In an informative feedback strategy, students do not immediately receive information about the correct response but are offered the opportunity to retry a task to apply feedback information. In this small-scale qualitative study, we explore an informative feedback strategy designed to offer a balance between room for exploration and mitigation of learning barriers. The research questions concern the ways in which students interact with the feedback strategy and their appreciation of error-specific feedback as opposed to worked-out solutions. To answer these questions, 25 15- to 17-year-old senior general secondary education students worked for approximately 20 minutes on linear and exponential extrapolation tasks in an online environment. Data included screen captures of students working with the environment and post-intervention interviews. Results showed that room for exploration offered opportunities for self-guidance, while mitigation of learning barriers prevented disengagement. Furthermore, students appreciated balanced feedback. We conclude that the balanced feedback strategy yielded fruitful student–environment interactions.