The Competing Impacts of Negative Feedback on Academic Performance

Abstract

A laboratory experiment is used to test the hypothesis that accumulating negative feedback initially boosts, and then decreases, student academic performance. The experiment presented university students with a short quiz, and students who did not meet a preset standard received a negative feedback message. The students then took a second quiz. An analysis of the difference in performance between the first quiz and second quiz supported the hypothesized inverted U-shaped response of academic performance to negative feedback. Refining feedback strategies based on insights from this model could boost the academic performance of a broad swath of students.