The talk of Nicole Eckerlein continues the series "Psychologisches Forschungskolloquium" in the new year.

Errors are crucial factors in learning processes and bear numerous learning opportunities. To gain these benefits, it is helpful to regulate negative emotions and appraisals and to maintain enjoyment of learning. Moreover, especially action adaptive reactions to errors seem to be central to adaptive coping with errors. Action adaptive error reactions comprise of appropriate learning activities that are realized following errors and learning strategies that are used to reduce knowledge gaps, based on a detailed error analysis. In the current study, 177 university students received immediate error feedback while working with a computer-based learning environment. Following the error feedback, the participants had the possibility to close knowledge gaps by repeating sections of the learning environment. The resulting behavioral measurement of action adaptive error reactions had—above and beyond prior knowledge—a positive effect on knowledge assessed in a post-test. The results support the conclusion that action adaptive error reactions make an important contribution to explaining learning from errors.