Giving and receiving feedback

Type				Team Size
Me, Myself and I	Group Collaboration	The Academic System	Software	1	2-10	11-30	30+

What is feedback?

Feedback is a central element of any well-functioning relationship or institution. In a nutshell, in feedback, people face each other and complement their self-image through external evaluation. Our focus is primarily on the academic context, and there are two distinct emphases on feedback that we want to cover in this entry: The first is that we write about giving feedback; that is, the exchange of perceptions of impacts or quality between the differing perspectives of oneself and others in a process of working towards mutual goals. In a very broad understanding, any reaction that is shown towards an action or behavior can be regarded as feedback, because it directly or indirectly feeds back and influences the further course of conduct. Here, we focus on feedback as intentional communication about a quality evaluation or perceived development towards defined goals, e.g. learning goals in teaching, project goals in research, or development goals for career building. The second emphasis addresses strategies for receiving feedback. While there is diverse literature on giving feedback - why, when, and how (see the list of recommended literature below) - there is less tangible and practical information on how to take feedback in, use feedback constructively to work towards improvement, and deal with related emotions.

Goals of giving and receiving feedback

Giving feedback is a central element of any well-functioning relationship or institution. If a person is unclear about the effects of their actions or the quality of their work, they have no indication of what changes are necessary for improvement and development. How we perceive the world largely depends on social and educational influences. Our surroundings and background shape how we evaluate an action's impact or the quality of our work. However, people with a different set of influences or a different experience level may perceive and evaluate such impacts or results differently and in diverse ways. In feedback, people face each other and complement their self-image through external evaluation. Communicating intentionally about the diversity of perspectives helps all sides to reevaluate, and align actions and behavior accordingly. The motive for giving feedback should always be to help the other person make possible course corrections toward defined goals. Respectively, the motive for seeking feedback should always be self-reflection and improvement, not merely self-validation.

Who is giving feedback for what purpose and in what form?

Within academic contexts, feedback is given and received between individuals and groups of diverse experience levels: between peers in review processes, between teachers and students in teaching, between mentors and mentees in career building, between actors from society and actors from science working together in projects, and of course also as job performance feedback. Feedback in peer review cycles focuses on the joint creation and development of new knowledge. It is usually given in the form of written or audio comments on a manuscript, but also through invitations to new collaborations and speaking opportunities at events such as conferences. Feedback in teaching can be either an assessment of a student's knowledge acquisition and competence development or a teaching evaluation focusing on the quality of material and facilitation in the classroom. Such assessments or evaluations can be given in qualitative or quantitative form, i.e. grades and achieved credit? points are feedback as well as dialogue and exchange about achieving the learning goals (Blum, 2018). Often a combination is used on both sides for reflecting on the learning process together. Feedback in supervision and mentoring is similar to job performance feedback and includes the setting and monitoring of short-term to long-term goals for career paths or agendas for envisioned structural changes. Such feedback is based on e.g. assessment criteria, output, and track record, and is usually given in the form of intensive conversation or written statements (London, 2003). The form of feedback between project partners from society and science depends on the degree of involvement (see Stauffacher et al., 2008, p.414: Are partners informing each other, are they closely collaborating or aiming at mutual empowerment?) as well as the prospective impact. In-depth feedback formats will be increasingly important for postnormal science research and teaching, e.g. in transdisciplinary projects and case-based learning. In order to give feedback that is most useful and also time-resource sensitive, the feedback format should match what the person receiving the feedback can most constructively work with.

Why giving and receiving feedback is important

We strongly believe that learning and research are joint endeavors. The continuous reflection of one's own perspective paired with the exchange and analysis of perspectives outside of our own allows us to learn, develop, and grow. While to a certain degree, we take our surroundings as blueprints to compare and evaluate our own behavior and work, we tend to have blind spots, especially about our weaknesses, sometimes also about our strengths. Feedback is communication and alignment (Schumacher, 2022), and meta-studies in teaching and learning show that such communication and alignment have a strong effect on the individual learning curve (Hattie et al., 2014; Hattie&Zierer, 2017). Effective feedback is no one-way flow of information but supports trust and mutual understanding of the targeted learning goals (Bingham & Sidorkin, 2010), and ultimately fosters self-efficacy (Blum, 2018; Dainton, 2018). Consequently, a lack of feedback results in disorientation, potential repetition of mistakes, and slow or undirected development. Even if the given feedback is negative, it is shown to have positive effects on long-term development, and is better than no feedback (Sarkany & Deitte, 2017).

At what point is feedback helpful and how much feedback should be given?

The timing and amount of feedback depend on the context and intended impact. While formative feedback aims to influence an ongoing process directly, summative or conclusive feedback rather influences future processes (Defila et al. 2022). For planning the schedule for feedback, take into consideration that there is a phase of forming and storming before a group or individual can settle for joint productive work (Tuckman & Jensen, 2001). Assess where a person or group stands, and if this is the right time for feedback. Helpful questions to that end are: What is the baseline for assessment? Should a student have mastered certain topics and skills at a specific point? How well established is the team to work productively by now? What is the deadline they are working towards? Finding the right timing for feedback is essential to achieve the intended effect on the process. Similarly, finding the right balance between too little and too much feedback is essential for optimally supporting the other person or the group in their learning journey. Too little feedback leaves the individual or group struggling to find orientation. Too much feedback hampers the learning and development of competencies. In the introduction to this entry, we stated that any form of reaction can feed back into the process. However, specific setups for feedback support an in-depth and longer-term impact better than spontaneous feedback can. Settings that are specifically created for giving and receiving feedback allow participants to focus more clearly and deeply. If you aim at giving feedback, prepare the other party by asking when feedback would be most helpful and welcome. In some situations, feedback can be inappropriate and even counterproductive, e.g., if the person opposite is not in the emotional state to deal with it or has not yet reached some intermediate goals. The person giving feedback should reflect on the impact they want to create with their feedback, while the receiving person needs to reflect on an appropriate strategy for incorporating the feedback.

How to give good feedback

Giving good feedback is a cross-sectional competence. It requires knowledge of the respective topics, methods, and goals as well as social skills, and the ability for meta-reflection and foresight of the process to assess the intended feedback impact. The basis for good feedback should be a collaborative, solution-oriented, radical, and compassionate approach.

Collaborative: “No man is an island, entire of itself”, says a meditation by John Donne (1839). We’ve stated before that we think of learning and research as collaborations. Similarly, feedback in those processes is collaborative work, because both parties, the giver and the receiver of feedback, engage with questions of impact and quality, and both learn to understand each other or the intended goals better.

Solution-oriented: Feedback should be situation-specific, timely, and concrete, showing new perspectives and possibilities, so that the person receiving the feedback can react and implement the feedback. Rather than focussing on a problem, feedback should support finding solutions and constructively point out a way for change.

Radical and compassionate: Feedback should be marked as a personal perspective and should be formulated in a positive and motivating way. Especially critical feedback should come from an appreciative and empathetic attitude. However, feedback is also meant to challenge a person's further thinking and reflection, and therefore benefits from controversy, boldness, and radicality, too.

How to give good feedback - some practical advice

Advice for giving good feedback mostly focuses on guidelines for communication, e.g. valuable phrases like:

I observe... your behavior.

I guess... how I interpret you.

I feel... my feelings about what I'm experiencing.

I want... my wishes and demands are…

These phrases support a clear and context-specific conveying of the feedback message and emphasize the subjective position of the feedback giver while leaving interpretation space for the feedback receiver to work with the feedback in their own way. However, before you give your feedback, ask the other person if they want to hear your opinion. If they are not ready to deal with it or are not interested, your feedback possibly has no or unintended effects. In settings, where feedback is mandatory, like job performance feedback, or feedback accompanying grading in teaching, still prepare the other person or the group by announcing that there will be feedback at a certain point in time. If it is part of the learning and development design to meet specific goals and criteria, potentially hand out the assessment criteria, formulate learning goals, or make sure that the Code of Conduct is easily accessible. This allows for pre-reflection and critical comparison of external and self-perception. If learning goals are intentionally obscured, assure the feedback receiver that understanding and development are inherent in the process design (see Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Whichever approach is chosen, the baseline for the feedback should be communicated clearly. The choice of feedback method then depends on the context and the intended depth of feedback. There are methods for written or oral feedback, and they can be qualitative or quantitative. Stand-alone feedback is valuable, but continued support with longitudinal tracking of the learning and development is most helpful. When you give feedback, offer to check in with the feedback receiver again to jointly reflect on their progress and improvement. This holds the feedback receiver accountable to actually work with the feedback and ensures the feedback giver that the intended impact materializes. Especially in teaching, when feedback is only provided summatively in the form of grades, students struggle to identify trajectories for improvement on their own. Consequently, continuous feedback has been identified as pivotal in supporting the learning curve (Hattie & Clarke, 2019).

How to receive feedback

Feedback helps us re-evaluate and complement our own perceptions. Much depends on the quality of feedback that is received, but asking for, embracing it, and working with feedback is a competence in itself. Here we provide some advice based on our team members’ experiences in how to receive feedback and work with it effectively. Similar to the advice for giving feedback, we also propose a collaborative, solution-oriented, radical, and compassionate approach to receiving feedback.

The choice for collaboration – How to ask for feedback? If feedback is not mandatory, actively ask for it. Choose a person that you trust and who has the experience and benevolent attitude to support you. Be prepared, and self-reflect first before you seek feedback. Be clear about what kind of feedback is helpful for you, and specifically ask for feedback that points out the unknown paths toward your learning and development. Refrain from asking for too much help masked as feedback. Good feedback does not tell you what to do, but rather challenges you to find your own answers. If there is mandatory feedback, accept that institutions have standardized forms of feedback. Learn to value those, even if you would prefer feedback in a different form. While we encourage critical examination of institutional traditions, we also advise you to trust in the institution’s experience and its inherent objective to support you. Be grateful for the time and effort someone else has invested in your learning and development.

Constructing your own solutions – How to work with feedback? Feedback comes to you at different stages of your work and in different formats. Ideally, you have asked specific questions and get answers to them, but the feedback giver might also return additional ideas or critique to you. The better you have prepared a strategy for working with the feedback, the more constructively and effectively you can use and implement it. We first propose to think of categories for sorting the feedback. Depending on the context (e.g. text feedback, group work feedback, job performance etc.) examples could be: Is the feedback clear, or do you need more information to understand it? Does the feedback answer your specific questions, or does it provide additional information? Does the feedback require short-term implementation or long-term development? Does the feedback extend your position and view or does it contradict? Which part of the feedback can you readily accept, which part is more difficult? … Those categories help you in the second step to break down the feedback into tangible tasks and goals that you can work through. Write a list or go through the comments systematically. The more precise the items are formulated, the easier you can tackle them. If you don’t understand parts of the feedback, ask the feedback giver for clarification, or ask a peer to help you understand. In general, throughout your learning journey check in with the feedback giver or ask someone to be your accountability partner to monitor if you are on the right track. Third, while you work through your list, observe what works well and what does not in receiving the feedback. Over time, your strategies for working with feedback will refine and you will be able to either quickly implement it or connect it to your overall learning and development goals. One last word on feedback that you receive from several different sources such as reviewers. If they contradict each other, and you cannot yet evaluate which advice to follow - get feedback on your feedback from a mentor. Evaluating the quality of feedback, and ultimately developing the confidence to reject feedback is also part of the competence building in receiving feedback.

A path to radical compassion – How to deal with emotional reactions to feedback? First of all: emotional reactions to feedback are normal and acceptable. However, to work with feedback is long-term intellectual work, and a short-term emotional reaction stands in the way of it. It’s easily said that you just have to work on your emotions, but from our own experience we understand that the work toward emotional stability in the face of criticism - both positive and negative - is not easy. In this paragraph, we share techniques and tricks in three steps that helped us go through emotions related to feedback. With training, you can also turn your emotional response into an intellectual learning path. First, ideally, you choose the time when you feel emotionally stable and can actively prepare to take in the feedback. However, institutional feedback usually comes at times that you cannot choose. You can nevertheless prepare and brace yourself instead of letting the feedback overcome you. Think of questions that you want to have answers for from the feedback. Take some deep breaths, and assume that the person who is giving you feedback wants to help you develop and improve. Second, accept your emotional reaction to the feedback. It is okay to feel disappointed or angry, especially if you are asked to “kill your darlings”. Label your emotion, and ask yourself, where it comes from. There might be something in your biography that triggers the emotional reaction, but that something is usually in the past. Try to distance yourself from any reaction that does not belong to the current situation and to the received feedback, and then move beyond it. Making mistakes is normal. Realizing where your flaws are or which mistakes you have made essentially means that you know more now than you knew before, and you have already progressed out of the state of unconsciously not knowing into consciously not knowing (Schonenboom et al. 2008). This is a crucial step towards realization of your learning. Third, while you work with the feedback, further observe your emotions. Were the initial responses justified? Were they helpful in developing your agenda and path forward? Are your emotions changing? Similarly to the plan you develop for the feedback content, think of a plan for the accompanying emotions. With growing experience in receiving feedback, work on taking responsibility for your emotional reactions. This is the point when you develop agency, and choose a path of thinking about rather than feeling the feedback.

The hammer of truth - A 360-degree feedback 360-degree feedback is an extensive form of feedback in organizational development. The feedback is collected from diverse people within a network to get a critical full-circle view of a person’s (or role’s) performance in a leading position (Scherm & Sarges, 2019). External mediators collect the data anonymously through standardized questionnaires, which can be extended by interviews or written statements. The data is summarized and compared to a self-assessment with the same standardized questionnaire. The results are shared with the assessed person, and a further reflection process starts, including sessions and workshops with different groups for in-depth negotiation of development goals, measures, and agreements. While in general, the 360-degree feedback is too resource-intensive to be widely applicable, the central message is nevertheless noteworthy: get feedback from different sources and compare it to your own perception. You may be surprised, how aware your environment is of your behavior and the quality of your work, and how your self-perception can trick you into ignoring the blind spots. Even if the outcome may be as crushing as it initially was for Dan Harris (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuhIzO57HVk), it clearly shows you the potential for your own development and the path forward.

The normativity of feedback

Yes, feedback is normative.

In sum

Feedback is a means to support development and learning, and has a pivotal role within the network of knowledge production and transfer. Good feedback contributes to bridging the world how it is with the world how it ought to be (Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics).
To give good feedback is a cross-sectional competence that requires practice.
Receiving feedback and working constructively with it is a competence, too.
Critical feedback shows you what to work on and supports you in identifying weaknesses and challenges. Such realization is part of your development.
Take in positive feedback and learn from it, too. It will help you identify your strengths and show you how to develop further.

Literature

Bastian, J., Combe, A. and Langer, R. (2016): Feedback-Methoden: erprobte Konzepte, evaluierte Erfahrungen. 4. Auflage. Weinheim: Beltz.

Bingham, C. & Sidorkin, A.M. (2010): No education without relation. Peter Lang Publishing, New York.

Blum, S. D. (2018): " I Love Learning; I Hate School" An Anthropology of College. Cornell University Press. p.115ff on grading

Dainton, N. (2018). Feedback in der Hochschullehre (Vol. 4891). UTB.

Defila, R., Di Giulio, A., & Scheuermann, M. (2022): Forschungsverbundmanagement: Handbuch für die Gestaltung inter-und transdisziplinärer Projekte. vdf Hochschulverlag AG.

Donne, John (1839): The Works of John Donne. Vol III. Henry Alford, ed. London: John W. Parker. 574-5.

Harris, Dan (2022): The Benefits of Not Being a Jerk to Yourself. TED Talk. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuhIzO57HVk (posted: 10.10.2022; accessed 29.8.2024)

Hattie, J. & Clarke, S. (2019): Visible Learning: Feedback.

Hattie, J., & Zierer, K. (2017): 10 mindframes for visible learning: Teaching for success. Routledge.

Hattie, J., Beywl, W., & Zierer, K. (2014): Lernen sichtbar machen für Lehrpersonen. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.

Laraway, R. (2024): How to Receive Feedback: 6 Tips for Receiving Feedback Well. Blog Post. URL: https://www.radicalcandor.com/blog/how-to-receive-feedback/ (posted 7.8.2024; accessed: 30.8.2024)

London, M. (2003): Job feedback: Giving, seeking, and using feedback for performance improvement. Psychology Press. p.11ff Why and how feedback works.

Neuberger, O. (2000): Das 360-Feedback. Alle fragen? Alle sehen? Alles sagen? Rainer Hampp Verlag.

Sarkany, D., & Deitte, L. (2017). Providing feedback: practical skills and strategies. Academic Radiology, 24(6), 740-746.

Scherm, M., & Sarges, W. (2019): 360°-Feedback (Vol. 1). Hogrefe Verlag GmbH & Company KG.

Schoonenboom, J., Tattersall, C., Miao, Y., Stefanov, K., & Aleksieva-Petrova, A. (2008). The role of competence assessment in the different stages of competence development. Handbook on Information Technologies for Education and Training, 317-341.

Schumacher, E. M. (2022): Schwierige Situationen in der Lehre: Methoden der Kommunikation und Didaktik für die Lehrpraxis-Mit Hinweisen zur Online-Lehre (Vol. 2). UTB.

Tuckman, B. W. and Jensen, M. A. C. (2001): Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited. Group & Organization Management, 2(4), 419-427.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219437

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtl5UrrgU8c

The authors of this entry are Max Kretschmer and Dagmar Berg-Mölleken.