1.1.

Background

There is considerable research showing that receiving feedback is essential for learning [1-9]. Peer feedback is often a central part of pedagogies such as active learning, which is grounded in social constructivist theories and relies heavily on group work and collaboration [2-3]. Peer feedback can promote the development of higher order cognitive and metacognitive skills such as critical thinking, problem solving and decision making [6]. While there is much written about the effectiveness of receiving feedback, much remains to be learned about the effect of providing feedback. Providing feedback is arguably important as a mechanism through which students can develop self-regulatory skills, learning how to monitor and evaluate their growing knowledge [7]. In the process of providing feedback, students take on the responsibility of seeking out information and acting on it [8]. Because of this, providing peer feedback is a complex task and calls for students to learn how to assess the work of others, and in doing so, gain the skills necessary to evaluate their own work [9]. Research suggests that this self-regulatory and agentic action, providing peer feedback, can improve with practice [5] and training [10]. However, due to the scarcity of research on this topic, there is still much to be learned about how and what students learn by providing peer feedback, as well as how educators can best help students learn from the process. Accordingly, in this study we looked at whether an online peer instruction tool called (myDALITE) can be used with error-detection tasks (EDT) to improve the quality of peer feedback and to engage students with course content.

1.2.

Peer Instruction to enable peer feedback

Peer Instruction (PI) [11] is an effective way for students to give and receive peer feedback on their conceptual understanding because of its use of a think-pair-share script that includes discussion and reflection on a conceptual question. In traditional in-class implementations of PI, these discussions and subsequent peer feedback are not recorded. Our team has developed myDALITE (mydalite.org) [12], a free web-based learning platform that provides students with asynchronous PI that can be used in- and out-of-class. Supporting active learning pedagogy, myDALITE engages students in 1) written explanation – students must provide rationales for their answers; 2) comparison of these rationales to those of peers; and 3) reflection on the quality of the rationales – students can answer the question again, choosing a different rationale or keeping their original rationale.

PI engages students in discussion at the conceptual level and focuses on student’s deep understanding by requiring them to engage in a form of reciprocal teaching [13] and to explain and reflect on their understanding. It is particularly designed for those stubborn conceptual understandings that require restructuring of certain beliefs and ideas because they are not consistent with the canonical (i.e., normative) explanations of phenomena – i.e., conceptual change (e.g., [14]). Such intentional reflection is believed to facilitate conceptual change [15]. In doing so, PI requires students to compare their understanding to the explanation and arguments put forward by other students. Additionally, it distributes to students the responsibility of arriving at criteria and standards for what is a good explanation or argument, compared to normative ways of thinking within the discipline.

1.3.

Error detection tasks as a meaningful pedagogical activity

In our EDT, students are presented with the solution to a physics problem written by Pat, a fictional in-class peer. Pat’s solution contains zero, one, or multiple errors which can be algebraic, procedural, or conceptual, depending on the learning objectives. Students identify and explain how to correct the error(s), as though they were explaining it to Pat. This requires a more careful reading and understanding of the task and helps students to avoid making similar errors and misconceptions in the future.

In the types of physics problem solving used in this study, an important aspect is the recruitment of procedural knowledge by the student. Students must go backward into their previous learning to find out what the error was, but then must also go forward to explain and give feedback. However, initial student thinking is not necessarily normative, rather it is often naive [16], that is to say a more novice rather than expert understanding. It is difficult for anyone to change their conceptual knowledge from within a naive framework, so one goal of EDT is to scaffold the students’ progress to achieve a more normative understanding. By practicing this critique of procedural tasks, procedural tasks become embedded in a framework that is normative and which, therefore, forces students to shift and think differently. This is because students’ mental models are more likely to change if they are constrained to this new framework [17-19]

The literature reports that EDT can be more effective under certain conditions, compared with other problem solving tasks. For example, [19] found that students with medium-high initial prior knowledge learned best from a mix of correct and error-detection problems, while students with low prior knowledge benefitted more from studying correct worked examples alone rather than from a mix of correct worked problems and problems with errors, even if the specific errors were highlighted. Importantly, the inclusion of explicit feedback steps seems to play a role. Stark et al [20] showed a benefit for all students from a mix of correct and error-detection problems when giving explicit feedback and comparing/contrasting. The effectiveness of EDT has also been established compared with computer-based problems that provide immediate feedback on individual steps. In these studies, the EDT groups performed better on a delayed posttest than the control group [21]. While these studies provide important insights into the process and use of EDT, none of them explicitly combined EDT with the provision of peer feedback, as we have done in the current study in which students engaged in EDT and provided feedback to their fictional in-class peer, Pat.

1.4.

Scripting the EDT and peer feedback activity in myDALITE

Students log into myDALITE and are directed to the prepared assignment that includes one or more EDT as well as other questions. Each EDT requires the student to engage in a 6-step process:

We have selected a simple harmonic motion (SHM) EDT and peer feedback activity to illustrate these steps in Figures 1-5.

Figure 1:

myDALITE screen capture for step 1.

Figure 2:

The solution to a physics problem written by a fictional in-class peer, Pat.

Figure 3:

myDALITE screen capture for step 2.

Figure 4:

myDALITE screen capture for steps 3 and 4.

Figure 5:

myDALITE screen capture for steps 5 and 6.