In a health education setting, feedback refers to the information or guidance that the educator provides to the student about their performance or progress. Feedback can be used to help students understand their strengths and areas for improvement, to clarify expectations and goals, and to guide future learning and development. Feedback can be provided in a variety of forms, including verbal feedback, written feedback, and feedback through observation or assessment.
The educator's role in providing feedback is to offer clear and constructive guidance that is focused on helping the student learn and grow. This may involve highlighting areas of strength and suggesting areas for improvement, and providing specific strategies or recommendations for how the student can progress.
The student's role in receiving feedback is to actively listen and consider the feedback, and to use it as an opportunity to reflect on their performance and progress. Students may also be encouraged to ask questions or seek clarification as needed.
Feedback can be an effective tool for learning in a health education setting because it can provide students with the information and guidance they need to understand their strengths and areas for improvement, and to plan for their future learning and development. Feedback can also help to clarify expectations and goals, and can provide students with a sense of direction and purpose.
Elaborative feedback - that is, feedback that helps students to not only understand what mistakes they made, but also why they made these mistakes and what they can do to avoid them the next time - has a very large effect on student learning ➕➕➕➕➕ . Elaborative feedback is robust across computer-based instruction [3], reading comprehension [2], and when used to delivery negative feedback [1]. The timing of feedback has also been shown to be most effective when delivered after as opposed to during attempts ➕➕➕➕ [2] and immediately instead of after a delay ➕➕➕➕ [3]. Negative (or critical) feedback can have a detrimental effect on intrinsic motivation ➖➖➖➖ , but this effect can be buffered if the feedback is given in person➕ , references standards, guidelines, or criteria ➕ , and is coupled with praise ➕➕➕➕ [1]. Finally, the effect of feedback on learning is greater when delivered by students ➕➕➕➕➕ compared to when it’s delivered by educators ➕➕➕➕ [4].
This evidence summary is informed by four meta-analyses that cover related but separate topics on feedback. The paper by Fong and colleagues [1] explores the effects of negative feedback on intrinsic motivation. This paper included 78 controlled studies from across different student groups. There was very little risk of publication bias influencing the results, but the heterogeneity score was high (.79). However, the effect of negative feedback on intrinsic motivation compared to positive feedback was so large ➖➖➖➖➖ , that it’s unlike that any additional findings would shift the findings considerably.
Swart and colleagues [2] explored the effect of feedback on learning from text. This paper included 60 controlled studies, reported a N fail-safe above 2000 studies, and reported findings from a broad population. The only issue with this study was the significant heterogeneity statistic.
Van der Kleij and colleagues [3] explored the effects of computer-based feedback on learning. The included 36 studies, which were mostly randomised control trials. Their sample were broad and their risk of publication bias was low (76 studies with contrary findings would be needed to overturn their conclusions). The only issue was the significant heterogeneity statistic.
Finally, Wisniewski and colleague [4] completed a meta-analysis exploring the effects of feedback on learning across a very broad sample. The included 435 experimental studies in their paper, but had a high heterogeneity score (I$^2$ = 0.86) and didn’t report publication bias statistics.
