Tradeoffs Between Immediate and Future Learning: Feedback in a Fraction Addition Tutor Eliane Stampfer EARLI SIG 6&7 September 13, 2012

Giving Feedback: When should we tell students something directly, and when should we show them something they have to interpret for themselves? Research Question

CorrectnessGrounded Faster procedural learning Better conceptual understanding Overview

Prior Work: Interpretation is Best Algebra expressions drive an animation, showing meaning in terms of story Nathan 1998 Seeing the consequences of incorrect Excel formulas Mathan & Koedinger 2005 Invention of formulas for variance prepare students to learn from a lecture Schwartz & Martin 2004 Literature Review

ANIMATE Sample Problem A helicopter rushes from Central City trying to catch up with a train. The train had left two hours before the helicopter, and the train was going 75 miles per hour. The helicopter flies at 300 miles per hour. The train is 60 miles from a broken bridge – can the helicopter reach it in time? Literature Review Nathan 1998

Time: hours Literature Review Nathan 1998

Prior Work – Difficulties with Representations Relating representations is difficult Ainsworth, Bibby, & Wood 2002 Students don’t always notice or encode relevant features of the learning environment Siegler 1976, Blair 2009 Literature Review

Tutor Design

Input what students are learning Feed back shows nature of error in a form students understand Works by Feed Forward reminding students of what they already know may point to the next step Why Grounded Feedback? Equivalent fractions would line up My fraction should be bigger Tutor Design

Study Condition 1 - Grounded Tutor Design

Study Condition 1 - Grounded Tutor Design

Study Condition 1 - Grounded Tutor Design

Study Condition 2 - Correctness Tutor Design

Tutor Similarities Same Problems On-Demand Text Hints Must Solve Each Problem Before Moving On Tutor Design

Tutor Differences Grounded FeedbackCorrectness Feedback ShowsTells Students can re-write any input Students cannot change correct inputs Permits student to try incorrect paths Prevents inefficient paths Red When Wrong Eliane Stampfer Tutor Design

Study Method and Participants Pretest Instruction Assigned Tutor Immediate Post Test Delayed Post-Test 2 weeks later Participants: all of the 5 th graders at a local school, about 140 (129 completed all parts) Study Design

Instruction Tutor

Process Measures Grounded Feedback Correctness Feedback Problems Attempted (max 20) Hints per problem Significant Differences in problems attempted and hints per problem (p<.01) Results

Pre-Test, Post-Test, and 2-week Delayed Post Test 3 Test Forms, Matched and Counterbalanced Pre-Requisite Knowledge, Transfer, Target, and Metacognitive Test Design

Metacognitive Your friend solved 2/7 + 1/9. Look at the work your friend did and check the correct statements at the bottom: Test Design

PrePost2-Week Delayed Pre to Post: Both groups learned (p <.01) Post to Delayed: Significant difference in learning (p =.035) CorrectnessGrounded Results: Full Test

Target Knowledge Same Denominator 3/9 + 5/9 One Denominator is a Multiple of the Other 2/12 + 3/4 Unrelated Denominators 1/4 + 3/10 1/3 + 4/11 Eliane Stampfer Test Design

Pre to Post: Both groups learned (p <.01) Difference in Learning (p =.036) Post to Delayed: Only Grounded improved (p <.01) Difference in Learning (p =.057) PrePost2-Week Delayed CorrectnessGrounded Results: Target Items

Metacognitive Design

Did Metacognitive Skills Improve? Excluding Ceiling at Pretest Differences in learning from Pre to Delayed-Post are significant (p=.03) PreImmediate Post2-Week Delay CorrectnessGrounded

Grounded Feedback: Not Intuitive Results

ConditionPre Immediate Post 2-week Delay Correctness (47) Grounded (90) ConditionPre Immediate Post 2-week Delay Correctness (16) Grounded (48) All StudentsExclude Correct at Pretest Results Differences at 2-week delay: p=.02

Discussion Tradeoffs between immediate and future learning Grounded Feedback helped even though student didn’t understand it perfectly Grounded Feedback may improve conceptual understanding and evaluation skills

Relating Back to the Literature Ainsworth et al: relating representations is hard Blair and Siegler: students don’t always pay attention to the important parts of the feedback Schwartz: struggling at first may prepare students for future learning

Next Steps Grounded Feedback may work better when it is more grounded in students’ prior knowledge Difficulty Factor Assessment to see why students don’t understand the current fraction bars Compare Grounded Feedback to robust worked examples

Acknowledgements Thanks to my advisor Ken Koedinger, my participants and their teachers, and the Pittsburgh Sciences of Learning Center This research was supported in part by the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center through NSF award SBE , and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305B to Carnegie Mellon University.

Tradeoffs Between Immediate and Future Learning: Feedback in a Fraction Addition Tutor Eliane Stampfer EARLI SIG 6&7 September 12, 2012 Thank You!

Guided Instruction Tutor

Guided vs. Discovery: No Difference Same amount of time per problem Same number of hints requested per problem Further analysis will treat them as one group: Grounded Feedback Results