By Dennis Sale
Have you noticed that it’s becoming the norm to be asked for feedback, whether it’s after having bought something, spoken to a call centre or even following the use of a public toilet. There is an evidence-based logic to seeking feedback, and there is much potential benefit from an effective feedback process, which I will explore in this column.
However, there are also challenges and hidden negative psychological aspects in both giving and receiving feedback. The 1966 Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which starred one of my favourite actors – Clint Eastwood – is a film and analogy that comes to mind when thinking about feedback – in fact, when thinking about many things relating to human behaviour.
So, let’s first unpack the good, and discover how it is reflected and what makes effective learning and wellbeing. The focus here is on educational contexts, but the principles and processes used are generic to all situations where humans interact.
It has been well established that effective feedback is fundamental to the learning process. Gibbs (2008) highlights: ‘Research in schools has identified that the way teachers provide and use feedback, and engage students with feedback, makes more difference to student performance than anything else that they can do in the classroom.’
However, it is only relatively recently that this opinion has been subjected to detailed scrutiny in terms of its impact and how it works on specific aspects of the learning process.
In practice, there are many interrelated aspects that contribute to the high-impact potential of feedback on learning. In synthesising the research literature, Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick (2006) suggest the following seven benefits that can result from good feedback practice:
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Helps clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards).
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Facilitates the development of self-assessment (reflection) in learning.
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Delivers high-quality information to students about their learning.
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Encourages teacher-and-peer dialogue around learning.
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Encourages positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem.
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Provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance.
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Provides information to teachers that can be used to shape teaching.
However, if students are unclear about what they are supposed to be learning (e.g., the goals, criteria, expectations) even good feedback may not make much sense. Hence, to maximise the positive impact of feedback on attainment a few conditions need to be effectively met. Sadler (1989) summarised them as follows:
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What good performance is (i.e., the learner must understand what the goal or standard being aimed for entails).
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How current performance relates to good performance (for this, students must be able to compare current and good performance).
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How to act to close the gap between current and good performance.
The manner and types of questions asked during feedback sessions are also important. A friendly, supportive and mediation-based approach is essential to create a level of rapport in which learners feel comfortable providing feedback to the teacher. Once established, teachers can then ask students focused questions to ascertain what they know and understand, and identify specific gaps in knowledge and understanding alongside misconceptions, enabling learning to become more visible to both.
Furthermore, effective teachers, just as they adjust their communication style to different student personalities, also adjust feedback based on student need in different contexts. For example, Hattie and Yates (2014) suggest that novices require more specific task-related corrective feedback to be gradually replaced with more process feedback as they become increasingly proficient and self-regulated in their learning.
What this means is that initial feedback should focus on detecting errors in student tasks and help to reduce and eventually eliminate these errors. Such feedback will include showing students what went wrong, examples of correct performance and ways to improve these types of learning tasks.
Process feedback is more focused on how students are tackling the tasks given, such as their thinking (e.g., analysing, comparing, making inferences and interpretations, evaluating) and the learning strategies they are using. In providing feedback it is often the case that both aspects are needed, and this is where the teacher’s judgement and skilful actions can be most impactful.
As students become more proficient, feedback is usually increasingly focused on their abilities to monitor and evaluate their own learning, both at cognitive and affective levels (e.g., metacognition).
How much feedback should be given and its frequency will, as with all aspects of instruction, depend on the situation and learners’ readiness. As Hattie (2012) summarised: ‘The key is the focus on decisions that teachers and students make during the lesson, so most of all the aim is to inform the teacher of student judgments about the key decisions: “Should I relearn… Practise again… To what?” and so on.’
Now, I’m going to lump the bad and ugly together, as they are essentially just variations of ineffectiveness and potential detrimental features of feedback. Feedback can often be of a negative nature, involving degrees of criticism. Unfortunately, even when well-intended, many psychologists agree that criticism does not lead people to change behaviours, and can often lead to anger and defensiveness from the person criticised. Communication between the parties is negatively impacted, and positive relationships impeded. Hence, we are left with a paradox: on the one hand, criticism is often ineffective, if not harmful, on the other, some criticism is often part of a working relationship – whether in educational or other contexts.
Even small linguistic points can significantly impact the meaning of the communication between the giver and receiver in a feedback situation. For example, while it is seen as good practice to provide positive feedback first before moving on to a negative element, using critical terms can significantly impact the receiver’s experience.
Interpersonal communication is highly problematic, and where there is a threat to self-esteem, which is often the case even with constructive criticism, the desired effect of helping a person improve in some way is severely mitigated. For this reason, high levels of sensory acuity skills (e.g., using our senses of observation, listening and empathy to make sense of the perceptions and feelings of others) are needed to deliver effective results in the feedback process. Sadly, these are lacking in many cases.
Finally, like all things in life, too much of something can lead to boredom and habituation. Hence, being asked for too much feedback, too often, and on small things can lead to a lack of attention and interest in the importance of feedback when it really matters.
As the old saying goes: let’s not sweat the small stuff; there are always bigger and more important issues that demand better attention, better thinking and, most importantly, better action.
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Dennis Sale worked in the Singapore education system for 25 years as advisor, researcher and examiner. He coached more than 15,000 teaching professionals and provided over 100 consultancies throughout Asia. Dennis is author of the books Creative Teachers: Self-Directed Learners (Springer 2020), and Creative Teaching: An Evidence-Based Approach (Springer, 2015). To contact Dennis, visit dennissale.com.
