Effects of Feedback and Mandatory Practice on Learning to Spell during Computer-Assisted Instruction

Abstract

College students were given a computer-assisted instruction lesson in psychology. The lesson required the use of 30 words difficult to spell in responding to questions presented throughout the lesson. Feedback to students' responses took one of three forms: (1) No feedback for misspellings of otherwise correct answers, (2) Feedback about the correct spelling of incorrectly spelled words, and (3) Feedback with practice in which students engaged in mandatory practice of an incorrectly spelled word until the word was spelled correctly. There were no significant differences across treatments on an unanticipated spelling test over the difficult words given after a 3- to 6-day interval. However, students in the no-feedback and feedback groups were over-confident about the accuracy of their spellings, while the feedback-with-practice students were under-confident, with this difference being statistically significant. A possible advantage of feedback and practice over feedback alone is discussed.