Design of Indivisual Feedback to Motivate Working Adults to Complete University Extension Courses

Abstract

While the demand for adult learners to acquire new skills is rising, learning opportunities for social workers often end with the award of a “certificate of attendance.” Because skills acquired through education will not be confirmed by educational providers, qualities of educational programs are not guaranteed. In order to confirm skill acquisition, it is necessary to introduce post-learning assignments, and strategies aimed at completion even after the course attendance ends are needed to maintain learning motivation. In this research, in order to maintain and improve the motivation for completing post-learning tasks, we improved the design of individual feedback for learning outcomes in university extension courses that participants submitted, such as reports and worksheets, and evaluated its effects. As a result, the completion rate and the impression evaluation of the course improved. The free description of the questionnaire also suggested that introducing informational feedback and multiple opportunities for feedback increased motivation to finish the course. Based on these results, we proposed a design principle that incorporates individual feedback as a way to improve motivation for completing courses.