Compared to what? Effects of social and temporal comparison standards of feedback in an e-learning context

Performance evaluation is based on comparison standards. Results can either be contrasted to former results (temporal comparison) or results of others (social comparison). Existing literature analyzed potential effects of teachers' stable preferences for comparison standards on students' learning outcomes. The present experiments investigated effects of learners' own preferences for comparison standards on learning persistence and performance. Based on research and findings on person-environment-fit, we postulated a fit hypothesis for learners' preferences for comparison standards and framed feedback on learning persistence and performance. We tested our hypotheses in two separate experiments (N = 203 and N = 132) using different manipulations of framed feedback (temporal vs. social) in an e-learning environment, thus establishing high ecological validity and allowing objective data to be collected. We found first evidence for beneficial effects of receiving framed feedback towards own preferences on learning persistence and performance in our experiments. We tested fluency as a possible underlying psychological mechanism in our second experiment and observed a larger fit effect on learning persistence under disfluency. The results are discussed regarding a new theoretical perspective on the concept of preferences for comparison standards as well as opportunities for adaptive e-learning.