The Interplay of Automated Formative Feedback and Instructional Prompts in Developing Summarising Skills

Background Summarising has been shown to be an effective learning strategy as it enhances cognitive skills, communication abilities and information processing. Effective summarising skills are therefore an important academic asset for university students. Yet, undergraduates struggle to employ effective summarising strategies, thus needing support. Objective We aim to investigate the effectiveness of automated formative feedback versus instructional prompts based on reciprocal teaching in improving summarising skills. We also explore if combining both feedback and prompts offers any additional benefits in enhancing these skills. Methods N = 254 elementary education students were asked to summarise six scientific texts, with one group ( N = 87) receiving automated formative feedback, one group ( N = 75) receiving instructional prompts based on reciprocal teaching and one group ( N = 92) receiving a combination of both. Results and Conclusion Automated formative feedback outperformed instructional prompts based on reciprocal teaching in supporting the development of summarising skills. Combining the two did not have a significant additional effect. At first sight, this may indicate that learning potential is maximised with automated formative feedback. However, students in the combination group requested slightly less feedback, which indicates a possible substitution effect between automated formative feedback and instructional prompts.