Using verification feedback to correct errors made on a multiple-choice test

A key educational challenge is how to correct students' errors and misconceptions so that they do not persist. Simply labelling an answer as correct or incorrect on a short-answer test (verification feedback) does not improve performance on later tests; error correction requires receiving answer feedback. We explored the generality of this conclusion and whether the effectiveness of verification feedback depends on the type of test with which it is paired. We argue that, unlike for short-answer tests, learning whether one's multiple-choice selection is correct or incorrect should help participants narrow down the possible answers and identify specific lures as false. To test this proposition we asked participants to answer a series of general knowledge multiple-choice questions. They received no feedback, answer feedback, or verification feedback, and then took a short-answer test immediately and two days later. Verification feedback was just as effective as answer feedback for maintaining correct answers. Importantly, verification feedback allowed learners to correct more of their errors than did no feedback, although it was not as effective as answer feedback. Overall, verification feedback conveyed information to the learner, which has both practical and theoretical implications.     

Evaluation of a Video Prompting and Fading Procedure for Teaching Dish Washing Skills to Adults with Developmental Disabilities

We evaluated a video prompting and fading procedure for teaching three adults with developmental disabilities to wash dishes. Video prompting involved showing video clips depicting each step of the task. All three adults reached 90–100% correct when video prompting was implemented. Following acquisition, video prompting was withdrawn, but performance deteriorated. Subsequently, a 3-step fading procedure was implemented in which the separate video clips were merged to form larger, multi-step segments of video. Performance reached 80–100% correct as the video prompts were re-applied and then faded. Performance decreased at the 3-month follow-up when prompting was removed, but stabilized at 80–90% correct when the third step in the fading sequence was reinstated. These data suggest a promising approach for fading video prompts.     

Biased generalization of newly learned phonological alternations by 12-month-old infants

Previous work has suggested that learners are sensitive to phonetic similarity when learning phonological patterns (e.g.,  and ). We tested 12-month-old infants to see if their willingness to generalize newly learned phonological alternations depended on the phonetic similarity of the sounds involved. Infants were exposed to words in an artificial language whose distributions provided evidence for a phonological alternation between two relatively dissimilar sounds ([p ∼ v] or [t ∼ z]). Sounds at one place of articulation (labials or coronals) alternated whereas sounds at the other place of articulation were contrastive. At test, infants generalized the alternation learned during exposure to pairs of sounds that were more similar ([b ∼ v] or [d ∼ z]). Infants in a control group instead learned an alternation between similar sounds ([b ∼ v] or [d ∼ z]). When tested on dissimilar pairs of sounds ([p ∼ v] or [t ∼ z]), the control group did not generalize their learning to the novel sounds. The results are consistent with a learning bias favoring alternations between similar sounds over alternations between dissimilar sounds.