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Four-type negative feedback manipulation contrasted with a no-feedback comparison group

Design · All designs
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description

The study operationalizes negative feedback as four distinct types assigned between groups. Upon an error, "Group A subjects were given explicit metalinguistic information about the generalization we hoped they would learn"; "Group B subjects were told that their response was wrong"; "Group C subjects were corrected when they erred, giving them a model of the response desired along with implicit negative evidence that their response was incorrect"; and "Group D subjects, having made an error, were asked if they were sure about their response." A comparison group received no feedback. This taxonomy separates explicit metalinguistic, explicit rejection, model-plus-implicit-negative-evidence, and elicit-confirmation feedback types.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • Learners must first be trained on the target structure so that errors can be elicited and feedback delivered upon error

Constraints

  • Feedback was delivered in response to errors on a single trained structure, the English dative alternation, with adult Spanish-speaking ESL learners

Target Learners

  • Adult Spanish-speaking learners of English as a second language

Learning Goals

  • Learning abstract constraints on the English dative alternation

Claims

Examples

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Key Sources

  • Susanne Carroll and Merrill Swain. (1993). Explicit and Implicit Negative Feedback: An Empirical Study of the Learning of Linguistic Generalizations. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Volume 15, Issue 3. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263100012158
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id four-type-negative-feedback-manipulation-dative-study
title Four-type negative feedback manipulation contrasted with a no-feedback comparison group
description The study operationalizes negative feedback as four distinct types assigned between groups.
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-15
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — susanne-carroll-and-merrill-swain-1993

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