Welcome back.
I hope you've spent some time reflecting on why you think that feedback
is important.
Let me tell you about some of the reasons why I think it is important.
The first thing is, that it clarifies goals.
Learners may think that they know what is expected of them, but
in fact they often don't.
They have a sense of what they want to do, but they don't have a sense of what you
think that they ought to do, or perhaps what is the right thing to do.
So the, the clarifying goals through the provision of feedback will
help them identify what they need to be doing, and what they know is required.
Next thing is it, it emphasizes good performance.
If residents don't know, or learners don't know what is good, or
what is right, then they won't necessarily know what is the right thing to do.
And so by providing feedback, we're emphasizing the good performance.
This next thing is that it corrects mistakes.
If they're making a mistake, or not recognizing they're making a mistake, or
need help.
Trying to fix the mistake,
the feedback will help provide that information for them.
Next thing is it, for, it serves as a reference point, both for
summative, meaning the final grading or scoring,
as well as formative performance, meaning the, it, for performance for improvement.
So, it gives a learner a sense of where they're doing and
how they're doing, so that they know how they can improve for
the next time, or how they're doing in terms of a grade or a score.
All right, let's take a minute and talk about self-assessment.
You can see here that the little dog thinks that she's a great, big wolf, but
in fact she is not.
That is what we know about self-assessment,
is that people do not have a good sense of who they are, or what they look like, or
what they do, and that our own self assessment tends to be relatively poor.
In fact, 95% of college professors think that they are above average.
And as like Wobegon says, all of us are above average.
Now the issue is that we're not, right?
We all have areas in which we perform poorly, and
we all have areas in which we perform well.
So the important thing is that, feedback is to provide a better sense of
how we are actually doing as opposed to how we think that we are doing.
Sally Santen, M.D., Ph.D.Associate Professor - Emergency Medicine
