Initiation of the self-regulated feedback loop: The effects of feedback and strategy modification on vocabulary learning, motivational beliefs and self-regulation processes

Previous research has shown Incremental Rehearsal (IR) to be an effective, albeit inefficient, method for increasing sight-word vocabulary. Attempts have been made to increase the efficiency of this strategy by identifying the causal mechanisms that contribute to its effectiveness. However, few studies have explored the effects of this potentially inefficient strategy on motivation. The present study applied a self-regulatory framework to investigate IR, by examining the effects of performance-related feedback and strategy modification on vocabulary learning, motivational beliefs and self-regulation processes. Sixty-five middle school students participated individually in this study, which involved using IR for nine minutes to learn from a set of twelve unfamiliar words. All participants were quizzed three times and received one of three types of feedback on how well they learned from the set of words. In the first condition, no explicit feedback was given related to performance. In the second condition, outcome feedback, a graph depicting the number of words correctly identified for each trial was shown. Participants in the third feedback condition received outcome feedback and were shown the words that they either incorrectly or were unable to identify, which was called outcome plus corrective feedback. Additionally, half of all students were both instructed how to modify IR and given a modification prompt after three minutes of studying. Among the significant results, participants prompted to modify their use of IR learned significantly more words than those not prompted, in addition to endorsing significantly greater levels of self-efficacy and higher self-evaluative standards, irrespective of the type of quiz feedback they received. Additionally, participants who received outcome plus corrective feedback but were not allowed to modify IR displayed significantly lower task interest and perceived instrumentality than students who were allowed to modify IR and received outcome plus corrective feedback. Moreover, participants in the outcome plus corrective feedback without modification group were significantly less likely to have set a goal or make an adaptive inference. These results were discussed in terms of the self-regulated feedback loop as it relates to Zimmerman's (2000) model of self-regulation.