Corrective Feedback Improves Long-Term Retention

Final exams at the university level are regarded with high importance because they can determine a grade in a class. Because final exams encompass information that students have been previously exposed to and tested on, retaining the correct material from intervening tests throughout the semester is ideal. Butler, Karpicke and Roediger (2008) showed that receiving feedback after tests improves retention of correct answers and allows for the correction of initially incorrect answers on a later test. However, it is unclear what feedback is best for long-term retention intervals. This study investigates the effectiveness of different types of feedback on long-term retention. The experiment uses 100 multiple-choice questions with four options to choose from as test material. After completing the test, participants are randomly placed into one of four feedback conditions, which are as follows: feedback displaying the original question and four options, with the correct answer bolded and underlined; feedback displaying the original question and only the correct answer bolded and underlined; feedback displaying only the correct answer bolded and underlined; an unrelated set of free response questions as the control condition. Participants return to take the final test two days later, which is a reordered copy of the original test. Because it has been shown that exposing test takers to other incorrect answers can lead to the development of false information (Roediger & Marsh, 2005), it is expected that participants who received feedback displaying the original question and only the correct answer bolded and underlined answered more questions correctly on the final test than participants in the other feedback conditions. This study can serve as evidence for both students and professors to use for the enhancement of final test scores. Students can use the information to more effectively prepare for tests and professors can improve feedback