“Your argumentation is good”, says the AI vs humans – The role of feedback providers and personalised language for feedback effectiveness

Abstract

Argumentative writing is an important skill for (future) teachers, and this skill can be promoted with feedback. For such feedback to be effective, certain social and non-cognitive aspects must be considered. Building on this, our study investigated the influence of different feedback providers and language styles on learners’ motivation, emotions, self-efficacy, and perceptions about the provider and the feedback. A total of N = 98 German student teachers participated in the 3 (feedback provider: artificial intelligence (AI) vs educator vs peer) × 2 (feedback language: personalised vs neutral) experimental between-subjects design. Results showed that student teachers ascribed an AI, compared to educators and peers, with more trustworthiness, particularly regarding its expertise. Against our expectations, we did not find further significant effects, but we found several tendencies that point towards the importance of social and non-cognitive aspects in feedback processes and indicate the need for further research. Conclusively, these aspects should be considered when investigating feedback processes in online learning environments.

Keywords

• Feedback provider
• Automated feedback
• Non-cognitive learner reactions
• Artificial intelligence in higher education
• Argumentation skills