The power of a simple verbal explanation: Evaluating the efficacy of narrated feedback

The explosion of online resources has changed the way assessments are designed and implemented. Students learn more when they have an opportunity to review their mistakes, an objective to which online homework systems contribute substantially. But the effectiveness of online assessments depends on the ability to obtain feedback, which often comes in the form of automated written explanations. This paper tests the efficacy of an alternative form of feedback: narrated feedback, consisting of short narrated videos providing verbal and visual explanations of a specific concept. We conduct a field experiment in a large enrollment microeconomic principles course in which students are randomly assigned to either a control group that received no feedback or a treatment group receiving either written or narrated feedback. We provide evidence that students with access to narrated feedback scored on average up to 10.1% higher on assessment questions relative to those with access to written or no feedback.