Feedback has been described as the “cornerstone” of effective teaching (Cantillon, 2008) and is essential for performance improvement. Feedback, whether verbal or written, should include both positive and constructive guidance for maintaining and improving knowledge, skills, and attitudes with an emphasis on improvement strategies. “Without feedback, mistakes go uncorrected, good performance is not reinforced and clinical competence is achieved empirically or not at all” (Ende, 1983).
Why Use This Strategy?
- A program’s culture is the most dynamic variable in the equation that determines the significance of feedback. To develop a feedback culture, programs should “normalize feedback, promote trusting teacher-learner relationships, define clear performance goals, and ensure that the goals of learners and teachers align” (Watling, 2014, 721).
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“Feedback is most effective when it explicitly communicates to students about some specific aspects of their performance relative to specific target criteria, and when it provides information that helps students progress toward meeting those criteria” (Ambrose, Lovett, Bridges, DiPietro, & Norman, 2010, p. 139).
Teaching Tips
Characteristics of Effective Feedback
- Based on direct observation
- Focused on a specific behavior or skill
- Actionable
- Timely
- Limited
- Promotes self-assessment
- Emphasizes practice opportunities
- Use the Ask-Tell-Ask Feedback Framework (Barnett, 2001) to have a feedback conversation with learner:
- Ask: ask a question to trigger self-assessment, e.g., how do you think things are going, please reflect on…?
- Tell: relay your observations, concrete, specific, positive, and constructive/instructive
- Ask: ask a question about how improvement can occur, e.g., what do you see as priorities for improvement, who/what might help you improve
- When giving feedback avoid saying “good job”, “great job”, “poor performance”, etc. in isolation. If you use these phrases, make sure to include something specific that was either good or needs improvement.
Resources
- Palaganas, J.C. (2021). Six common pitfalls of feedback conversations. Academic Medicine, 96, 313.
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Feedback for Learning, Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning
- Ramani, S., Konings, K.D., Ginsburg, S., & Van der Vleuten. (2019). Twelve tips to promote a feedback culture with a growth mind-set: Swinging the feedback pendulum from recipes to relationships. Medical Teacher, 41(6), 625-631.
- Webinar: Effective Feedback and Evaluation: Best Practices for Improvement. Devin Scott and Amy Hall, TLC. Recorded October 2, 2020.
- Five Minute University: PJ Koltnow: Invite Student Feedback
- Five Minute University: Andrew Wilner: Giving and Receiving Feedback
- Radical Candor (2017) by Kim Scott
- Barnett P. B. (2001). Rapport and the hospitalist. The American journal of medicine, 111(9B), 31S–35S.
- French, J. C., Colbert, C. Y., Pien, L. C., Dannefer, E. F., & Taylor, C. A. (2015). Targeted Feedback in the Milestones Era: Utilization of the Ask-Tell-Ask Feedback Model to Promote Reflection and Self-Assessment. Journal of surgical education, 72(6), e
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Last Reviewed:
September 16, 2025
First Published:
May 11, 2022
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