The purpose of this study was to see which kind of feedback students remembered more when they were given a choice about what kind of criticism they wanted to hear. Overall, results indicated that students who chose critical feedback remembered said feedback more so than if students chose confirmatory feedback. The paired samples t-test analysis showed a significant difference of 0.21 points in favor of critical feedback.

University of California, Berkeley

The subjects were 106 8th grade students, ages 13-14, in a California middle school. The test was designed so that students would take the poster-designing assessment and be able to choose whether they would receive critical or confirmatory feedback. Then at the end of the assessment, they would be given a test on what feedback they remembered getting from the animal characters that provided said feedback.



The Impact of Critical Feedback Choice- Study 1

Cutumisu, Maria & Schwartz, Daniel. (2017). The impact of critical feedback choice on students’ revision, performance, learning, and memory. Computers in Human Behavior. 
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.06.029. 

The Impact of Critical Feedback Choice on Students' Revision, Performance, Learning, and Memory- Citation Reference

The subjects of this study were 98 college students, ages 18-52, in a California college. This test measured several variables, from their performance to learning and enjoyment. Conditions were based on if students chose to get feedback (either critical or confirmatory) or if they chose to automatically receive feedback (they would get critical or confirmatory feedback without being given a choice of which)
- Performance was determined based on how many rules of poster designing that were programmed were done correctly or not by the student. 
- Learning was based on a test done after the poster-designing game in which students would answer questions to see if other posters were correctly designed or not. 
- Enjoyment was based on a self-report by the students being tested. 

Overall, when students chose to receive critical feedback, they were more likely to redo the posters in the next round and perform better in the game. They would also enjoy the task if they chose to receive feedback. In contrast, students who received feedback, especially critical feedback did worse in the task, especially in later rounds of poster-designing and enjoyed the task less.

The Impact of Critical Feedback Choice- Study 2

The subjects of this study were 98 college students, ages 18-52, in a California college. This test measured several variables, from their performance to learning and enjoyment. Conditions were based on if students chose to get feedback (either critical or confirmatory) or if they chose to automatically receive feedback (they would get critical or confirmatory feedback without being given a choice of which)
- Performance was determined based on how many rules of poster designing that were programmed were done correctly or not by the student. 
- Learning was based on a test done after the poster-designing game in which students would answer questions to see if other posters were correctly designed or not. 
- Enjoyment was based on a self-report by the students being tested. 



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