How to revise and practice by Fiona McPherson

Author:Fiona McPherson [McPherson, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Education, study skills
ISBN: 9781927166642
Publisher: Wayz Press
Published: 2020-11-05T23:00:00+00:00

Feedback

Feedback has two main roles in practice: monitoring, and motivation. Let’s talk about motivation first.

Do I need to say that motivation is important? Sometimes we dismiss motivation as if it’s a luxury, a non-vital factor that only comes into play when the individual lacks the self-discipline to do what they know they should do. But ‘motivation’ has to do with having a ‘motive’, and a ‘motive force’ is a force that makes things move. It is motives that drive our actions, and motivation is vital to actions and to practice. It’s not simply about giving someone money, or a treat, or a gold star.

Motivation is about having a goal, and being able to maintain that goal.

Feedback is a factor in providing motivation because it can help you stay committed to your goal. It can also cause you to discard your goal, to give up. It’s crucial, therefore, to get feedback right.

In the context of motor skill learning, feedback is generally concerned either with the outcome of the action or the quality of the action. It may be explicit (such as your coach or teacher telling you exactly what you did wrong) or implicit, inherent in the action itself (if you’re aiming at a target, or if you’re trying to sink a putt, it’s obvious how well you’ve done).

Implicit feedback is less potentially dangerous than explicit feedback. You may decide to give up because you’re not doing as well as you think you should, but that’s a problem of your expectations and goal-setting, rather than a problem inherent in the feedback. Implicit feedback is vital for good self-monitoring. Explicit feedback, on the other hand, is more problematic. When we think of feedback as a de-motivator, it’s generally external feedback that’s the problem.

Research indicates that, in the context of skill learning, negative feedback — feedback about errors, or feedback telling you that you’re not doing as well as your fellow students — can worsen performance. However, feedback telling you that you’re doing well (regardless of its accuracy), improves performance.

It’s suggested that one reason why negative feedback might hamper skill learning is that it increases thoughts of ‘self’. This comes back to the third phase of skill learning — the aim is to remove consciousness from the process. When you’re thinking about your self, when you’re fretting over your performance and thinking about exactly what your body is doing, you’re standing in the way of the proper performance of the skill.

If your coach, teacher, or fellow-students are overly critical, therefore, you might find it helpful to either:

change them for more supportive people!

try to convince them that negative feedback is counterproductive, or

find some occasions to practice without them.

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