A developmental perspective on feedback: How corrective feedback influences children’s literacy, mathematics, and problem solving

Abstract

Research in psychology and education indicates that corrective feedback can be a powerful learning tool. We provide a developmental perspective to focus specifically on how corrective feedback influences learning in childhood (∼ages 3–11). Based on a systematic search, we review 44 empirical papers published between 1990 and 2022 examining the effects of corrective feedback on children’s performance in the domains of literacy (n = 18), mathematics (n = 14), and problem solving (n = 12). Across these domains, we synthesize research on how children respond to lessons and practice with, versus without, corrective feedback to provide theoretical and practical insights into (1) the effectiveness of corrective feedback in early childhood, (2) the features of effective feedback messages at different ages, and (3) the role of individual learner differences. We make several novel recommendations with some focused on future research questions and others focused on ways teachers can provide effective feedback to children.

Author note

Emily R. Fyfe, Giulia A. Borriello, and Megan Merrick, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Notes

1 Several papers focused on children spanning multiple age ranges. Typically this resulted from studying children in a single grade (e.g., studying a 2nd grade classroom with mostly 7-year-olds and a few 8-year-olds). Details for each study are in Figure 2, 3 and 4. One paper (Stevenson, 2017) included children from all age bins (from age 4.9 to 11.3) as the researchers combined data from six separate studies using age-appropriate analogy tasks.

Additional information

Funding

Merrick was supported by a training grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32HD007475.