Error correction, revision, and learning

Previous research has shown that corrective feedback on an assignment helps learners reduce their errors on that assignment during the revision process. Does this finding constitute evidence that learning resulted from the feedback? Differing answers play an important role in the ongoing debate over the effectiveness of error correction, suggesting a need for empirical investigation. In this study, learners first wrote an in-class narrative and then revised their writing during the next class. Half the students had their errors underlined and used this feedback in the revision task while the other half did the same task without feedback. Results matched those of previous studies: the underline group was significantly more successful than the control group. One week later, all students wrote a new narrative as a measure of (short-term) learning. On this measure, change in error rate from the first narrative to the second, the two groups were virtually identical. Thus, successful error reduction during revision is not a predictor of learning (at least for the uncoded corrective feedback that has typified studies in this area), as the two groups differed dramatically on the former but were indistinguishable on the latter. Improvements made during revision are not evidence on the effectiveness of correction for improving learners’ writing ability.