Error correction support

Prompting error repair is an instructional method where students are invited to detect and/or correct errors (Reif & Scott, 1999; Essay errors...).

For instance, McCormick et al invite ESL students to detect errors in recordings of their speech, and activity formerly done only by teachers. For example, while listening to her recording of her speech and reviewing the transcript of that speech, the student detects and corrects the following word choice error: "I said, 'I can't predict this problem.' I should have said, 'I can't fix this problem.'"

Booth et al. showed students some instructor-authored errors, and had them explain why the errors were wrong.

In theForbes-Riley & Litman study, if students give a correct response but the intonation contour of their spoken response indicates uncertainty, then the tutoring system gives them the same remediation (a subdialogue) as it would if the response were incorrect. Although this manipulation is perhaps not a close fit to the method of prompting error repair, it does invite students to treat their uncertainty as an error and to "repair" it.

• Reif, F., & Scott, L. A. (1999). Teaching scientific thinking skills: Students and computers coaching each other. American Journal of Physics, 67(9), 819-831.