Role of Immediate Feedback in a Personalized System of Instruction: Evidence of a Negative Impact

The longstanding emphasis on immediate feedback in Personalized System of Instruction techniques was considered. Two studies investigated the effects of various feedback intervals in personalized instruction on measures of performance, retention, and preference of college students. The first study ( N = 10) indicated that an after-each-item feedback condition more negatively affected performance, preference, and recall than did feedback provided after the examination. Findings of the second study ( N = 12) replicated this effect by comparing after-each-item feedback with after-the-exam feedback and feedback given the next day with a minimal-feedback control condition. In all cases, feedback after-each-item provided the worst results. Further, even though both showed better effects on recall than did the control condition, after-the-examination and next-day-feedback conditions did not differ.