Experiential Learning Activity
Coach, Don’t Correct
Paste a resume bullet into most AI tools and you get a polished replacement in seconds. This one will not give you that. It asks what you meant, makes you write your own fix, and only shows you an example after you have already tried.
In development
Theoretical Basis
Feedback Intervention Theory, which holds that feedback aimed at the answer rather than the person’s own reasoning can leave performance worse rather than better, paired with Self-Determination Theory’s account of how autonomy and one’s own effort drive genuine internalization of a skill.
What it is
Most AI writing tools optimize for one thing: the best possible output, right now. Hand one a weak resume bullet and it hands back a strong one. The student walks away with a better document and, often, no better at the underlying skill. Coach, Don’t Correct is built around the opposite bet: that the point of a resume-writing tool used in an educational setting is not the resume, it is the student who has to defend that resume in an interview six weeks later without any AI in the room.
The tool never writes a student’s bullet for them. It identifies what is missing, asks the questions a good writing coach would ask, and requires the student to produce their own revision before it will show them anything else.
How it runs
- Identify. The student pastes in a resume bullet. The AI reads it and names one specific weakness, a missing detail, a passive verb, a claim with no measurable result behind it.
- Ask. Instead of rewriting the bullet, the AI asks clarifying questions designed to surface the details the student left out. What did you actually do? What changed because of it? Who noticed?
- Revise. The student attempts their own revision using what the questions surfaced. No AI-generated text is offered yet.
- Coach. The AI responds to the student’s actual attempt, not a hypothetical ideal version, pointing out what is stronger and what still needs work.
- Verify. The student confirms the facts in their revised bullet are accurate. Only after this step does the tool reveal a single AI-generated example, offered as a comparison rather than a starting point.
What it surfaces
The design rests on a distinction the coaching literature has long drawn between an intervention that solves today’s problem and one that builds the capacity to solve the next one without help. Answer-oriented AI tools are very good at the first and largely untested on the second. The research questions this tool is designed to test include whether a coached revision produces better unassisted performance later, whether requiring a student’s own attempt increases their sense of ownership over the finished resume, and whether a verification step reduces the kind of unverified or overstated claims that do not hold up when an interviewer asks a follow-up question.
For instructors
Built for use in career development coursework, cover letter and resume workshops, or advising contexts where the goal is a more capable writer, not just a stronger document. Session data is collected with identity scrubbing and minimal retention by design, so classroom use does not require collecting student names, emails, or full resumes.
Authors
References
- Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254–284.
- Deci, E. L., Eghrari, H., Patrick, B. C., & Leone, D. R. (1994). Facilitating internalization: The self-determination theory perspective. Journal of Personality, 62(1), 119–142.
- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.
- Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 61, Article 101860.
- Wang, G., Wang, W., Yang, D., & Ren, J. (2026). Generative AI, cognitive offloading, and learner agency in higher education: A scoping review. Behavioral Sciences, 16, Article 1150.
- Waung, M., McAuslan, P., DiMambro, J. M., & Mięgoc, N. (2016). Impression management use in resumes and cover letters. Journal of Business and Psychology.
- Terblanche, N. H. D. (2024). Artificial intelligence (AI) coaching: Redefining people development and organizational performance. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 60(4), 631–638.