PROVIDING SPECIFIC FEEDBACK is one of the crucial events of learning. it is not the interactivity or the feedback per se that promotes learning but the fact that specific feedback prompts the retrieval of information from memory.

Let's take a look at a typical computer-based, multiple choice question:

Who was president of the United States during World War II?
A. Woodrow Wilson
B. Lyndon Johnson
C. Franklin Roosevelt
D. Dwight Eisenhower

Feedback has been classified under the following categories: 
1. No Feedback
The learner may receive a score listing the correct or incorrect responses. There is no opportunity for learning because the focus is not on the content, but on the overall score. 

2. Knowledge-of-Response
The learner receives feedback on whether the response is correct or incorrect, and has no opportunity to focus on the specific information to re-learn.

3. Response-Contingent
The learner receives specific information why the incorrect response was wrong and why the correct response is correct. Passive encoding means that the learner does not need to discover the answer and is offered a pre-existing mental map of the content

4. Topic-Contingent
After incorrect responses, the learner is given additional information to determine the correct answer for himself. Active encoding means the learner has to pursue the correct answer and create his or her own mental map of the content in the process.

These last two categories are the most interesting and are the only ones that provide elaboration feedback. The Response-Contingent Feedback explains the why, but it does not activate the retrieval memory process as much as the Topic-Contingent Feedback which makes the learner discover the answer for him or herself.

Joe Pacino, Graduate Student ，SDSU Educational Technology
Pacino, J. (2005). Elaboration feedback. In B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Technology.