Teaching Problem Explanations Using Instructive Feedback: A Replication and Extension.

Area of Science:

• Behavior Analysis
• Educational Psychology
• Learning Sciences

Background:

• Instructive feedback (IF) is a teaching strategy involving secondary targets presented after a learner's response.
• Unlike traditional instruction, IF does not require a learner response to the secondary information.
• Previous research by Tullis et al. (2017) established the efficacy of IF in skill acquisition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate and extend the findings of Tullis et al. (2017) regarding instructive feedback.
• To investigate the maintenance of skills acquired through IF over time.
• To examine the generalization of learned skills from training to naturalistic environments.

Main Methods:

• Replication of procedures used by Tullis et al. (2017) involving primary and secondary targets.
• Inclusion of maintenance probes up to two months post-training.
• Assessment of generalization to untrained, naturalistic settings.

Main Results:

• All participants successfully acquired and maintained both primary and secondary targets for up to two months.
• Skill maintenance was robust, indicating long-term retention of learned information.
• Two participants demonstrated generalization of learned skills to naturalistic environments.

Conclusions:

• Instructive feedback is an effective teaching strategy for skill acquisition and long-term retention.
• IF demonstrates potential for promoting generalization to real-world settings.
• Further research is warranted to explore factors influencing generalization of IF.