Research explainer
What should a writing hint actually say?
“Add more detail” can leave a learner guessing. Detail about what? A useful hint needs to connect the task, the sentence the learner wrote and the part that still needs work.
Name the gap
Suppose a learner is asked for an example but writes another reason. Correcting punctuation will not help with that particular problem. The response needs to draw attention to the difference between explaining a benefit and showing a situation in which it matters.
An illustrative hint might ask: “Can you describe one student whose journey would be shorter?” It gives the learner something concrete to consider while leaving them to write the example.
Change the help when the first hint does not work
PrepTalk’s retry design increases support after unsuccessful attempts: the first, second and third-or-later attempts receive different levels of help. The learner can keep trying.
The messages are generated from the actual response and the structured result of checking it. They are not a fixed set of three messages repeated regardless of what the learner wrote. A second attempt may have solved the first problem and revealed another.
Check the judgement behind the hint
A specific hint can still be wrong. If the system mistakes a valid example for an unrelated sentence, a confident explanation of that mistake only makes the experience worse.
That is why reviewing the validator and reviewing the hint belong together. We need examples of responses that should pass, responses that need work and acceptable alternatives that differ from the expected wording. PrepTalk’s production validation review is still outstanding.
Leave a sentence for the learner to write
The hint should help the learner make a decision they can act on. Supplying the complete replacement sentence changes the work they are being asked to do.
We also need to find out when repeated help becomes frustrating or too revealing. More specific support is a design intention; its usefulness has to be checked with learners and appropriate research measures.
The example hint is written for this explainer. Actual hints depend on the learner’s response and the result of the stage check.