EFG - 10

The Black Box of Feedback: Capturing Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioural Indicators of Feedback Effectiveness

This EFG is led by Naomi Winstone and Anastasiya Lipnevich.

ABOUT

There is growing appreciation in the education literature that the efficacy of instructional feedback, from Early Years to Higher Education, depends upon how learners make sense of and use feedback as a means to improve their performance, enhance learning, or hone psychosocial skills (Winstone et al., 2017; Lipnevich & Smith, 2018). However, despite growth in empirical research in this area, the mechanisms of feedback uptake remain largely hidden in the ‘Black Box’, as first discussed in the seminal work of Black and Wiliam (1998). It is our intention to bridge this chasm, by moving beyond the predominance of self-report methods, and seeking to develop and test innovative research paradigms that open up the Black Box of feedback uptake. New understanding of the mechanisms via which feedback facilitates learning can lead to societal as well as scientific impact, by informing the design of feedback processes that maximize outcomes for learners.

Methodological approaches from cognitive psychology and learning sciences (e.g. eye-tracking, EEG, experience sampling) have potential to surface previously invisible elements of feedback processing, such as: how learners attend to and comprehend feedback comments in real-time; the cognitive biases that are activated at the point of feedback receptivity; real-time affective responses to feedback; the integration of feedback information into cognitive action plans; and how the implementation of feedback information is evident in behaviour.

Aims of the EFG:

1. To develop new research paradigms that can advance research in the area of instructional feedback, through bringing together a network of researchers in education, psychology, and cognitive science, to encourage the cross-fertilisation of ideas from different domains of inquiry.

2. To conduct pilot studies and share data drawn from these new research paradigms in order to underpin future research and provide initial description of the affective, cognitive, and behavioural mechanisms governing effective feedback processing.

Team Member

Anastasiya Lipnevich

EFG Facilitator

City University of New York

Naomi Winstone

EFG Facilitator

University of Surrey, UK

Jaclyn Broadbent

Team Member

Deakin University, Australia

Gavin Brown

Team Member

University of Auckland, New Zealand

Liesje Coertjens

Team Member

University of Louvain, Belgium

Kim Dirkx

Team Member

Open University of the Netherlands, Netherlands

Thomas Götz

Team Member

University of Vienna, Austria

Stefan Krumm

Team Member

Free University of Berlin, Germany

Jason Lodge

Team Member

University of Queensland, Australia

Robert Nash

Team Member

Aston University, UK

Bertram Opitz

Team Member

University of Surrey, UK

Frans Prins

Team Member

Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Jan-Willem Strijbos

Team Member

University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Michele Vecchione

Team Member

Universita di Sapienza, Italy

Jochem Aben

Team Member

University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Maike Krannich

Team Member

University of Zurich, Switzerland

Renske Bouwer

Team Member

University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Florence van Meenen

Team Member

University of Louvain, Belgium

Chelsea Dainton

Team Member

University of Surrey, UK

Marta Siedlecka

Team Member

Jagiellonian University: Krakow, Poland

Ewa Szumowska

Team Member

Jagiellonian University: Krakow, Poland

Gabriela Czarnek

Team Member

Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Małgorzata Kossowska

Team Member

Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Paulina Szved

Team Member

Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland