Published 10 November 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1961
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1961

Practice

Teaching Rounds

Giving feedback in clinical settings

¹ Department of General Practice, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland , ² Program Development and Evaluation, Continuing Medical Education, Division of Medical Education, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada

Think about a clinical teaching session that you supervised recently. How much feedback did you provide? How useful do you think your feedback was?

Feedback is the cornerstone of effective clinical teaching.¹ Without feedback, good practice is not reinforced, poor performance is not corrected, and the path to improvement not identified. Though teachers believe that they give regular and sufficient feedback, often this is not how it is perceived by learners.^{2 3 4}

Feedback is about providing information to students with the intention of narrowing the gap between actual and desired performance.^{5 6} The purpose of giving feedback is to encourage learners to think about their performance and how they might improve.^{1 2} Surveys of learners’ preferences show that they want feedback that stimulates them to reflect on what they are doing.^{7 8}

Feedback is a concept that is strongly theory based. From a behaviourist perspective, feedback has been shown to reinforce or modify behaviour.⁹ However, feedback can also cause harm; negative feedback, if not carefully managed, can result in demotivation and deterioration in performance.¹⁰ Cognitive theorists have shown . . . [Full text of this article]

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