Effects of Feedback on Learning Strategies in Learning Journals: Learner-Expertise Matters

Introduction

Feedback is a common instructional support measure. It is often part of the teaching process in online instructional design and is usually presented as information to a learner in response to previous performance by the learner’s part (Shute, 2008). Feedback thus is a consequence of performance. Generally, feedback is regarded as crucial in improving cognitive skill acquisition (Moreno, 2004) and has been referred to as one of the most powerful influences on learning and achievement (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). However, despite the widespread acceptance of feedback in online instructional design, empirical studies show that feedback does not necessarily result in performance gains (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). The inconsistent effects of feedback might be partly due to interactions between the level of learners’ prior knowledge and the scaffolding provided by feedback. In cognitive load theory, such interactions are referred to as expertise reversal effects (Kalyuga, 2007; Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, & Sweller, 2003). The expertise reversal is a reversal seen in the relative effectiveness from instructional support measures (e.g., providing scaffolding feedback: yes vs. no) when levels of prior knowledge in a domain change (Kalyuga & Renkl, 2010).

Taking the case of providing highly elaborated feedback on learning strategies in a learning protocol, for example, a prototypical instance of such an interaction could contribute to inconsistent effects of feedback as follows: On the one side, for learners who possess low quality learning strategies prior to feedback, highly elaborated feedback might compensate for their insufficient knowledge base resulting in increased performance. For high expertise learners, by contrast, highly elaborated feedback might offer redundant instructional guidance. In this case, due to the need to cross-reference redundant instructional guidance with available knowledge structures (Kalyuga, 2007), feedback might decrease learners’ performance. In the field of providing feedback on learning strategies, however, this effect has not yet been taken into account.

In this article we will present arguments based on cognitive load theory as well as empirical evidence that show how highly elaborated feedback on learning strategies in learning protocols can interact with learners’ expertise on learning strategies and yield inconsistent effects. In the following sections we will first discuss instructional support measures (i.e., prompts and feedback) and empirical findings with respect to fostering learning strategies in learning protocols. Subsequently, we will link our discussion on fostering learning strategies to the expertise reversal effect and its potential contribution to inconsistent effects of feedback.