Warm elaborated feedback. Exploring its benefits on post-feedback behaviour

Abstract

This study provides evidence on the impact of including warm messages in elaborated feedback. These messages are aimed at the motivational process that can be mobilised by feedback and that which can condition its reception and the way students face the task (post-feedback behaviour). In a task where secondary school students had to learn a new strategy for improving their reading skills in a computer-based environment, we compared the use of elaborated feedback with the use of elaborated feedback enhanced with motivational messages (warm elaborated feedback) and a control condition (without feedback). The results showed that students receiving warm elaborated feedback revisited the text more often than those receiving only the elaborated feedback, and that both groups revisited the text more than the control group. This finding suggests that controlling the motivational aspects in feedback messages may increase the effectiveness of elaborated feedback.

Keywords:

• Warm elaborated feedback
• attributional and appraisal judgements
• post-feedback behaviour
• computer-based learning environments
• online measures

Acknowledgements

The study was developed under project EDU2014-55662-R founded by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad.

Notes

1 It is true that motivational orientation can affect the attributional judgment as well. However, this link will not be considered in this study (which is the reason for the dotted arrows in Figure 1), since the motivational orientation is identical in all experimental conditions (the importance of improving their initial competences is explained to all students at the beginning of the experiment) and is purposely manipulated only during the appraisal judgment.