Principle—Feedback

All intentional or directed learning is aimed at the attainment of some target. Feedback is the means by which the learner, or any other agent directing the learning process, ascertains whether or not progress is being made toward the end goal, and whether or not the goal has been reached. This principle includes the direct, planned, instructional feedback which the term commonly refers to, but is used here in a much larger sense, encompassing also local principles of learning such as reward and punishment, results of trial and error learning, performance outcomes, the incongruence of schemata with functional demand, contradictions to hypotheses, observed outcomes of vicarious experiences, and self-evaluation or critique.

Theory Group / Local Principles
Behavioral / Aristotle:
Guidance from teachers necessary to produce good builders
Thorndike:
Law of effect
Reward versus punishment Spread of effect
Pavlov:
Presence or absence of UCS in conjunction with UCS
Watson:
Response of a care giver
Satisfaction of a need
Feedback as reinforcement usually in the form of punishment or food
Skinner:
Feedback as reinforcement Positive reinforcement Negative reinforcement Primary reinforcers Secondary reinforcers Schedules of reinforcement
Timing of reinforcement
Hull:
Reinforcement Law of effect
Guthrie:
No feedback, simply arrangement to ensure stimulus and response association Drive removal
Instructor's words
Recognition of failure (in learning skills)
Estes:
Two dimensions of feedback: affective and cognitive Linking responses to a particular stimulus population
Cognitive / Ebbinghaus:
Evidence of progress: ability to reproduce a list from memory Evidence of progress: ease of recall
Evidence of progress: ease of relearning
Tolman:
Searching for the stimulus experiments
Affective versus cognitive dimensions of feedback Consequences
Kohler:
Failure or success of attempts
Cognitive Information Processing:
Errors as a source of feedback
An accurate sense of both your current state and how far you have to go Lack of feedback hinders performance
Feedback enables self correction
Ausubel:
Explicitly pointing out similarities and differences Hypothesis generation and testing
Confirmation, correction, and clarification Knowledge of results
Self-provided feedback via internal logic of meaningfully learned material Learning cannot take place in the absence of feedback
Prompting replaced by confirmation as learning progresses
Schema Theory:
Incongruence with functional demand Limited utility of accumulated information Insufficient accuracy
Overly narrow constraints
Overly broad constraints
Unspecified default values
Recognition of discrepancy
Feedback through analysis
Constructive / General:
Contradictions to hypotheses
Guided practice Standards assessment
Piaget:
Feedback through interaction with the environment
Bruner:
Evaluating: checking whether the way we have manipulated information is adequate to the task
Humanist / Achievement Motivation:
Expectancies for success and failure are formed from results of past successes or
Failures
Attribution Theory:
Action manifestations used to predict future action Outcome
Outcome-dependent affect
Causal antecedents
Causal ascriptions Causal dimensions
Self-Worth Theory:
Outcomes of performance
One's sense of worth depends heavily on one's accomplishments
Human beings tend to embrace success no matter how it occurs
Successes resulting from remedial assistance are not always valued as highly as
successes resulting from one's own efforts
People will sometimes reject credit for their successes if they feel they cannot repeat
them
Perceptions of ability (even in the absence of solid accomplishments)
Self-Efficacy:
Performance accomplishments or mastery experiences Vicarious experiences
Verbal or social persuasion
Physiological, or somatic and emotional, states
The cognitive interpretation of physiological states based on beliefs of self-efficacy
Self-Determination Theory of Motivation:
Positive feedback enhances intrinsic motivation
Negative feedback and perceived incompetence decrease intrinsic motivation, unless
the locus of causality is not perceived to be internal Informative versus controlling feedback
Controlling feedback leads to less intrinsic motivation
Self-Regulation:
Self-awareness of performance outcomes Effort feedback
Self-recording
Self-monitoring Self-evaluation Attributions
ARCS:
Effort-expectancy feedback loop Performance-expectancy feedback loop Satisfaction-value feedback loop
Freedom to Learn:
Significant learning is evaluated by the learner
Self-criticism and self-evaluation are basic and evaluation by others is of secondary
importance
An Agentic Theory of Self:
Cognitive self-guidance Self-reactiveness Self-reflection
Social / Vygotsky:
Self-realized difficulty or failure
Bandura:
Awareness of connection between consequences and actions
Vague kinesthetic cues and verbal reports [or modeling] of onlookers
Situated learning:
Check against reality
Self-evaluation- opportunities for understanding how well or poorly one's efforts contribute are evident in practice
Activity theory:
Contradictions manifest in the accepted practice
Results of analyzing the situation to understand the contradiction
Results of examining the proposed model as a potential solution
Results of reflecting on and evaluating the process by which the solution was found
Cognitive apprenticeship:
Natural consequence of actions Feedback through coaching Self-monitoring and correction Articulation and reflection