“KWARC was!”

Presentation by Gemma Corbalan (Open University of the Netherlands) on different feedback studies at the JEM Symposium on “math tutoring: tools and feedback” in Heerlen, Netherlands.

Study 1: Exploring the students’ perceptions regarding three different types of feedback generated by the MathDox system (9 students 1st year): Feedback on the final solution (correcting the answer), worked out examples (full solution of the problem), step-by-step.

Some Questions of the Questionnaires:

• This type of feedback was informative?
• The content of this type of feedback made the problem easier to solve.
• Describe what you like the most about this type of feedback?
• Which of te three types of feedback do you prefer the most?
• Which of the three feedback types was less informative?
• Selecting the feedback given an easy, medium, and difficult problem
• …

Results: Students preferences of feedbacks types e.g.

• feedback on problem-solving was preferred, in particular, step-by-step instructions
• more detailed feedback with increasing difficulty

Study 2: To measure the effectiveness, efficiency and motivational effects of two types of feedback generated by the MathDox system
during practice

• Measuring the mental effort: by asking students to indicate their mental effort based on a scale; after each exercise (student provided with the worked out examples or the step-by-step solving invested less mental effort)
• Measuring the performance and time

after practice: questionnaire of study 1

post practice:

• Near/ far transfer problems were given (to check if the quality of learning increased)
• Asking for the mental effort for solving the near/ far problems
• Efficiency (combining the performance and mental effort).

As far as I understand, this study computes the efficiency in solving a problem based on the mental effort and the final score. However, when copying a solution for a problem, I have a minimal mental effort and (if the copied solution is correct) a maximal score, thus leading to a maximal efficiency. Which is true for the task of solving a problem. However, I am wondering whether this also improves the learning of a student. But I assume this is why the “far transfer problem” were provided. And in the study, the students provided with step-by-step instructions and worked out example actually scored better in these far transfer tests. They also invested less mental efforts and thus were more efficient.

Further plans are studies on the effects of different types of feedback adapted to the difficulty of the problems.

Study 3: Comparing the LA system and MathDox
Mental effort was rather low with both systems. Both groups had similar post problem results. The general perception of usability was rather high in both systems. Learners were positive towards the eLearning experience.

This entry was posted by Christine on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 4:20 pm and is filed under cmueller, Conferences, Jem Symposium Heerlen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.