Evaluation of Teacher, Self-Assessment, versus Combined Feedback to Increase Students’ Behavioral Observation Skills

Feedback is an important component of online instruction. Few experiments have examined combined types of feedback (teacher feedback or student self-assessment) compared to extra practice with each on student learning. In this study, the experimental effectiveness of four methods of feedback delivery on students’ acquisition of behavioral observation skills was evaluated—teacher feedback only (TT condition), student self-assessment only (SS condition), teacher-then-student self-assessment (TS condition), or student self-assessment-then-teacher (ST condition). The results, both for a random sample of individual learners as well as at an overall group level, suggest that the SS condition was superior to the TS condition. In the SS condition, not only did participants perform better but also their accuracy of self-assessment on strengths was positively correlated with their Behavioral Observation Post-Training Assignment 1 scores and total Post-Training Assignment scores. Across all conditions, participants perceived their feedback experience as positive. Further research is needed to determine whether additional training scenarios and variations in training methodology are necessary to promote students’ learning.