An Analysis of the Effect of Immediate Corrective Feedback Administered as a Study Aid to Undergraduate Medical Technology Students

Twenty-six undergraduate medical technology students at Virginia Commonwealth University were provided with a Hemestasis Study Guide to use during this unit and in preparing for an exam in this area. The study guide contained fifty objective-related questions in multiple-choice format. Answers were printed in latent image and included positive reinforcement for correct selections and remediation for incorrect ones. Thus the student received immediate feedback concerning his response to each question. An examination grade continuum was plotted for this class utilizing all exam grades in the Hematology course. A similar continuum was plotted for each of the three previous classes. (These classes served as control groups.) A positive peak between the hemostasis exam grade and the grade of the prior exam was noted for the experimental class. The three previous classes also showed the same positive peak. In order to determine whether the amount of gain obtained by the experimental class was significant, an unpaired t-test was used to compare this gain with each of the three previous classes. The gain of each of the control classes was also compared with the other control classes using the same test. The gain of the experimental group was significant when compared with the gains of eaoh of the previous three control classes at the 99% confidence interval. Ho significance was observed between the control classes. These results suggest that learning was enhanced in the experimental group when compared with the control groups. It is probable that this enhanced learning was due to utilization of the study guide and/or immediate corrective feedback