Children (Jan 2022)

The Effect of Corrective Feedback in Basic Cognitive Tasks: A Study in Early Childhood

  • Carmen Moret-Tatay,
  • Enrique Vaquer-Cardona,
  • Gloria Bernabé-Valero,
  • José Salvador Blasco-Magraner,
  • Begoña Sáiz-Mauleón,
  • María José Jorques-Infante,
  • Isabel Iborra-Marmolejo,
  • María José Beneyto-Arrojo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/children9020145
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 2
p. 145

Abstract

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The aim of this study was to examine the effect of trial-by-trial corrective feedback in a go-no-go task for children. A sample of 40 preschool students, divided into 4- and 5-year-olds, participated in the study, as well as a group of 20 university students. All the groups performed the task in a counterbalanced design of blocks with and without corrective feedback. Reaction time and accuracy rate were measured as dependent variables. Moreover, reaction time was also analyzed through an ex-Gaussian fit. Children were slightly more accurate and slower under the presence of corrective feedback, suggesting a more conservative pattern. University students were faster, but corrective feedback did not reach the statistical level. Regarding reaction time components, a reduction of the distribution tails, depicted by the τ parameter, was found for both groups under the corrective feedback condition. This suggests that parameterization of reaction time can be considered as a strategy for a more detailed analysis to examine the effect of corrective feedback, even at early ages. In this way, corrective feedback depicted beneficial effects in the τ parameter at early ages, suggesting its use in basic cognitive tasks based on go-no-go but not for older groups.

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