Conscientiousness and learning via feedback to identify relevant information on PowerPoint slides

Angelica E. Cullen, Joshua L. Williams, Nancy G. McCarley

Research output: Contribution to journalSystematic reviewpeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Note taking is considered a crucial skill for college students to aid in learning information from oral-visual lectures. Despite its importance college students rarely receive training in effective note-taking. Prior research indicates that relevant word identification interventions improve students' abilities to recognize which words are considered relevant on PowerPoint slides. Also, we know that various types of feedback, including directive (right versus wrong) and facilitative feedback (right versus wrong with an explanation), can be effective when teaching an individual a new skill. However, little is known about how personality impacts individual learning as a function of various feedback types. The Big Five personality factor of Conscientiousness consistently predicts academic achievement and grade point average. In the current study, we explored whether personality, specifically Conscientiousness, as measured by the BFI-10, interacts with directive or facilitative feedback when given a relevant word identification task. Analyses revealed that students correctly identified more relevant information when given facilitative feedback versus directive feedback. Results from our proportional indices revealed that students did not perform significantly better simply by being presented with a greater amount of relevant words versus a lesser amount, which is contrary to previous research. Due to a lack of variability among the Conscientiousness scores of our sample, we provided cautious speculation but could not make any meaningful conclusions about the interaction of Conscientiousness level and feedback types.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)425-443
Number of pages19
JournalNorth American Journal of Psychology
Volume20
Issue number2
StatePublished - Jun 1 2018

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Education
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Sociology and Political Science
  • General Psychology

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