![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, errors can have a detrimental effect for people who have particular neurological deficits this topic is discussed in further detail below. Feedback should focus only on the correct execution of tasks and should take the form of positive social reinforcement, with errors-if any-being ignored. 47) urged that learners should be “spared the costs and pain of faulty effort” and that they should instead receive the needed step-by-step guidance that results in flawless behavior from the outset. ![]() Accordingly, active exploratory learning was to be avoided. Ausubel (and others) feared that with active exploratory learning, these false starts and errors would be learned and would make learning of the correct solutions and procedures more difficult, if not impossible. He used this reasoning to argue against an exploratory learning strategy, which by its very nature would mean that incorrect paths and faulty approaches and solutions would be encountered and entertained by the learner. In keeping with these views, Ausubel (1968) warned of the dangers of errors in the learning process and suggested that allowing people to make errors encourages them to practice incorrect and inefficient approaches that will cause trouble because they are difficult to overwrite later with correct approaches. Such a view, which is consistent with a number of the oldest and most well established theories of learning and memory ( Bandura 1986, Barnes & Underwood 1959, Skinner 1953), suggests that errors are bad and should be avoided at all costs. Exercising the errors should make the errors themselves stronger, thus increasing their probability of recurrence. ![]() In this view, committing errors should make those errors more salient and entrench them into both the memory and the operating procedures of the person who makes them. It might seem intuitive that if one does not want errors on the test that counts, then one should avoid errors at all stages of learning. Should one commit, explore, examine, analyze, and correct errors during learning and practice sessions, or should one avoid errors at all stages of learning? Rather, the question is how, during initial learning and during practice and preparation for a test that counts, one can best get to a state of performance that is optimal and in which errors will not inadvertently occur just when one needs them least and when they will do the most damage. This review is not directed at the question of whether errors, in a situation that counts, are good-of course they are not. If one is performing a piano solo before an audience, controlling a nuclear reactor, taking SATs, making a medical decision, fighting on a battlefield, or giving a lecture, the last thing one wants is an error. The consequences of committing such errors can be devastating. Nobody wants to make errors in a situation that counts. If the goal is optimal performance in high-stakes situations, it may be worthwhile to allow and even encourage students to commit and correct errors while they are in low-stakes learning situations rather than to assiduously avoid errors at all costs. Aside from the direct benefit to learners, teachers gain valuable information from errors, and error tolerance encourages students’ active, exploratory, generative engagement. Corrective feedback, including analysis of the reasoning leading up to the mistake, is crucial. Interestingly, the beneficial effects are particularly salient when individuals strongly believe that their error is correct: Errors committed with high confidence are corrected more readily than low-confidence errors. Experimental investigations indicate that errorful learning followed by corrective feedback is beneficial to learning. Although error avoidance during learning appears to be the rule in American classrooms, laboratory studies suggest that it may be a counterproductive strategy, at least for neurologically typical students. ![]()
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