2. How Visual Feedback Design Can Improve Students’ Affective Reactions to Automated, Negative Feedback Messages

• In Event: Tech-Driven Feedback: Leveraging Technology for Enhanced Learning and Assessment

Abstract

While automated, immediate feedback is a popular formative feature in digital assessments, its affective impact may not only be positive. The control-value theory suggests that students’ emotions strongly hinge on their appraisal of an achievement situation (Pekrun et al., 2023). Given that feedback mirrors failure when negative, negative feedback risks to entail failure-associated emotions. Empirical evidence supports this assumptions by showing that test takers react unfavorably to automated, negative feedback with a decline in positive and increase in negative emotions (Kuklick & Lindner, 2023). Adding design elements (e.g., pleasant colors/animations, pictures) to the display of automated feedback may improve the appraisal of and ultimately the affective reaction to immediate feedback, even when it is negative. However, evidence regarding the benefit of certain design variations origin from non-feedback contexts (e.g., Wong & Adesope, 2020) and it remains an open question how the visual design of automated feedback can affect test-taker emotions.
Thus, this experimental study aimed to quantify the affective benefit of adding a representational picture (RP) or pleasant/emotional design to text-based feedback messages in a digital low-stakes assessment. In a preregistered between-subjects study, 410 university students (51% female; Mage=24.29; SDage=4.23) worked on a computer-based geometry assessment with 12 constructed-response tasks. They received either (1) no feedback vs. immediate, elaborated feedback in different design variations: (2) text-only, (3) text+RP, (4) text+pleasant/emotional design, or (5) text+RP+pleasant/emotional design.
After each task, (and directly after receiving the feedback message, if applicable), students’ rated their emotions on 5-point Likert scales. Three items each measured positive emotions (“I am feeling proud/happy/confident.”; α≥.91) and negative emotions (“I am feeling angry/frustrated/annoyed.”; α≥.88). Considering the repeated measures, we conducted planned contrasts with linear mixed-effects models with fixed effects for the feedback groups and prior response correctness as a moderator.
The data confirmed that compared to the no-feedback group, prior response correctness moderated the feedback effects on students’ emotions (higher level of positive and lower level of negative emotions after correct responses, ps<.001; lower level of positive and higher level of negative emotions after incorrect responses, ps<.001; see Figure 1), which aligned with prior findings revealing performance-contingent effects of immediate, automated feedback (Kuklick & Lindner, 2023). Results show that confirmatory feedback is affectively beneficial and may be adequate as a positive reinforcement in assessments with higher expected correct response rates. On the contrary, corrective (i.e., negative) feedback may harm students’ test-related emotions limiting the applicability in lower-performing samples. Regarding feedback design, an RP (p=.015) and pleasant/emotional design (p=.036) improved students’ positive emotions after incorrect responses compared to text-only feedback. Yet, the effects of all four feedback design variants were still negative when compared to no feedback. This could imply that the feedback design mitigated (but did not nullify) the failure-related appraisal of the error notifications.
Taken together, the study showed that adding an RP or emotional design to feedback messages can slightly improve students’ emotional responses to immediate, negative feedback. Thus, research should further examine the added value of such visual design elements when implementing automated feedback in digital assessments.

Authors

• Livia Kuklick, Humboldt University - Berlin

• Marlit Annalena Lindner, IPN - Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education