The effects of feedback on item-by-item and global judgments of learning

This study examined the effect of accurate feedback and biased feedback (inflated and deflated), in the form of marks, on the accuracy of item-by-item and global judgments of learning (JOL). 80 participants (49 females, M\\(_{age}\\) = 29.61, SD = 12.76) were randomly allocated into one of four conditions: no feedback, accurate feedback, inflated feedback and deflated feedback. Using a computer program, participants studied 50 Swahili-English word-pairs, and judged the likelihood of remembering each item (item-by-item JOL) and the overall percentage of likely remembered word-pairs after each learning session (global JOL). Immediately after each learning session, a testing session was held. The accurate feedback group received accurate marks after the first and second testing session. The inflated feedback group received marks increased by 32 percent; the deflated feedback group ‚Äö- marks decreased by 32 percent. There were three study-test phases. Feedback did not affect item-by-item JOL accuracy. Deflated feedback significantly reduced global JOL accuracy with a large effect size (d = 1.16), suggesting that participants are sensitive to deflated feedback, which can potentially affect their theory-based cues about their ability to learn