Research Report on Learning from Failure: Psychology Study

This research report presents a study on learning from failure, investigating how different instructions and feedback mechanisms influence individuals' learning processes. The study, conducted at a university, involved participants in three conditions: control, error training, and other, with the independent variable being the instructions given and the dependent variable being the errors made. The results indicated that participants in the control condition, where feedback was provided, made fewer errors, suggesting that feedback positively impacts learning. The findings also revealed that participants learned more when answering one question correctly compared to when they answered three questions incorrectly, highlighting the role of feedback and motivation in learning from failures. The report discusses these findings in relation to existing research on failure and learning, emphasizing the importance of providing feedback and the potential for failures to enhance learning, especially when the degree of failure is small. The study's conclusions suggest that feedback is crucial in facilitating learning from failures and that it can be a powerful tool in improving performance.

Running head: RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
Abstract
Many researches have been conducted on understanding how failures affect an individual
to learn and improve themselves. The current study was carried out to understand the effects of
how different instructions can cause individuals to respond differently and whether they learn
anything from the previous mistakes they made. The results showed that there were significant
improvement in the performance when they were provided feedback. Failure in the task tended
to improve the performance of the participants.
Introduction
Failure is often seen as the first step towards success. Various studies have been
conducted to understand how failure can have an effect on the learning experience of an
individual. One such paper titled “Not learning from failure- the greatest failure of all” is
presented by Lauren Eskreis- Winkler and Ayelet Fishbach. This paper presents an
understanding of how failure did not enhance learning in individuals; on the contrary, it
undermined learning. The participants had to answer certain questions, then they were provided
with feedback which was either success or failure feedback (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019).
The results showed that the participants did not learn from failure feedback as compared to the
success feedback. When the participants were given incentives and the task was less cognitively
taxing, they had not learnt from failure feedback (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2019). The
reason for such results was that individuals took failure as ego threatening (Eskreis-Winkler &
Fishbach, 2019). Individuals learned more from others failures and successes than their own
failures. Therefore, in order to understand more about how feedback can affect the learning
capabilities of the individuals, a study was conducted at the university. The study was conducted
under three conditions: control, error training and other. The independent variable was the

2RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
instructions that were given to the participants as they were manipulated throughout the three
conditions. The dependent variable was the errors made by the participants while answering the
questions. It was hypothesized that the participants will make less errors in the control condition
since feedback will be provided to them. The questions in the error training condition are made
obscure intentionally, therefore it is expected that the participants may make random errors. In
the Other condition, it is hypothesized that the participants would make more errors as they are
provided with the feedback based on other person’s response.
Results
The results showed that the mean of how much the participants learned in the control
condition when there were three correct answers and one error was 3.490. One meant that there
was one correct answer and three meant that there were three correct answers. When there was
one correct answer and three errors made, then the mean was 3.567. In the “error training ONE”
condition, the mean was 3.373 while in the “error training THREE” condition, the mean was
found to be 3.530. In the “Other BAD ONE” condition, the mean was 2.359 while in the “Other
GOOD THREE” condition the mean was found to be 3.154. Therefore, from the above mean
results, it can be said that participants learned more in the “control ONE” condition than the
“control THREE” condition, p=0.21. Participants in the “error training ONE” condition learned
more than those in the error training THREE condition, p=0.42. Participants in the other GOOD
THREE condition did better than the participants in the other BAD ONE condition, p<0.001.
While comparing the control ONE condition with the error training ONE condition, it
was found that the participants in the prior condition performed significantly better than those in
the later condition, p=0.39. In the control ONE condition, participants performed better than
those in the other BAD ONE condition, p<0.001. Participants in the control THREE condition

3RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
did slightly better than those in error training THREE condition, p=0.445. Lastly, participants in
the control THREE condition worked significantly better and made less errors than the
participants in the other GOOD THREE condition, p<0.001.
The above findings are presented in the table below.
Table 1: Mean of errors in different conditions of presentation
Mean
Presentation condition One Three
Control 3.490 3.567
Error training 3.373 3.530
Other 2.359 3.154
Control Error Training Other
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
One Three

4RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
Figure: Participants were given different instructions and the mean of the errors in the responses
were measured.
Discussion
As anticipated in the previous research studies done on learning from failures, it can be
said that when the participants answered one question correctly they were inclined to learn more
and thus were motivated to learn better. The hypotheses were proven to be true as the
participants made less errors in control condition. The participants made greater errors in the
other two conditions when feedback was provided. The mean responses show that the
participants in all the conditions when answered one question correctly while answering three
questions incorrectly, then the mean was less than when they answered three questions correctly
while answering one question incorrectly. This shows that the participants might have been
influenced by feedback and been motivated to learn from failures. Contrary to the studies done
on understanding the learning outcomes from failures it can be said that here the difference in the
way instructions were provided to the participants played an important role. When the feedback
was provided to the participants, it was seen that they made less errors in the answering of the
questions.
The pattern of the results show that failure does not increase an individual’s motivation to
do better. According to a study done by Baumard and Starbuck (2005), failure increases the
feeling of individual to be more creative and innovative. However, when the failure is more
painful, it stops any behaviour in individuals that make the individual want to change. Because
failures are ego threatening, they give a sense to the people that they are not capable of doing
that particular task that further discourages them to involve in the task (Eskreis-Winkler &
Fishbach, 2019). In the present study, participants did perform well when they were given the

5RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
feedback. The results showed that they learned from their failures. This is because when the
degree of failure is small, the individuals are encouraged to learn from their failures so that the
can perform better in the future unlike when the degree of failure is huge, and then it discourages
people to indulge further. In another study conducted by Eskreis-Wrinkler and Fishbach, they
highlighted the fact that failures often contain useful information that people often tend to ignore.
The participants in the study were reluctant to share their failure even though it contained more
information than their success stories (Eskreis-Winkler & Fishbach, 2020). It is seen that people
share their experiences of success more than the lesson they learn from their failure. On reason
for such behaviour is that people do not want to be seen as a failure in the society. It is common
for people to hail the winners and the people who are successful and that is the reason that most
of the individuals refrain from sharing their own failure stories. They do not want to be seen as
whining and complaining individuals instead they want to be seen as successful individuals who
are hailed by all (Bledow et al., 2017). The above experiment therefore, was an attempt to
understand how failure affects the learning process of an individual and it was found that when
the degree of failure is small then that encourages them to learn more.

6RESEARCH REPORT ON THE STUDY ON LEARNING FROM FAILURE
References
Baumard, P., & Starbuck, W. H. (2005). Learning from failures: Why it may not happen. Long
Range Planning, 38(3), 281-298.
Bledow, R., Carette, B., Kühnel, J., & Bister, D. (2017). Learning from others’ failures: The
effectiveness of failure stories for managerial learning. Academy of Management
Learning & Education, 16(1), 39-53.
Eskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. (2019). Not Learning From Failure—the Greatest Failure of
All. Psychological science, 30(12), 1733-1744.
Eskreis-Winkler, L., & Fishbach, A. (2020). Hidden failures. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 157, 57-67.