Prompts to plan, check and reflect helped students learn more.

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   The review pooled 45 studies with about 2,800 students, about four in five of them at university or college. The rest were school pupils.

2. 02

   What they did

   Students in the prompt groups got prompts while they used learning software, either once or all the way through a session. The other groups got no prompts.

3. 03

   What happened

   Students who got prompts learned more than those who got none, and they also planned, checked and reflected more on their learning. Prompts that came with feedback, and prompts made specific to the task, helped learning more than the other versions did.

What the review found

1. HelpedGoals

   Across 42 studies, prompts to plan, check and reflect helped students learn more than getting no prompts did.

   • Action: Track your progresstested
   • Action: Reflect on how you performedtested

   Pooled analysis of 42 studies · vs students who got no prompts · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

2. HelpedOther outcomes

   Across 25 studies, prompts made students plan, check and reflect more while they learned.

   • Action: Track your progresstested
   • Action: Reflect on how you performedtested

   Pooled analysis of 25 studies · vs students who got no prompts · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

3. HelpedGoals

   Prompts that came with feedback helped students learn more than prompts without feedback did.

   • Rule: Get feedback on your progresstested

   Pooled analysis of 0 studies · vs prompts without feedback · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

4. HelpedGoals

   Prompts that were specific to the task helped students learn more than general prompts did.

   • Rule: Make it concrete and specifictested

   Pooled analysis of 0 studies · vs general prompts · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

Source