Feedback is one of the most powerful tools we have for helping each other grow. In large syntheses of educational research, it sits near the top of the list of factors that influence learning, with an average effect size of around d = 0.48 (Wisniewski, Zierer & Hattie, 2020).

But there is a catch. Feedback is not automatically good for us. Hattie and Timperley (2007) point out that its effects are among the most variable of all influences on learning: some forms of feedback have large positive effects, while others barely help – or even make performance worse. The same words that lift one person can deflate another.

So the interesting question is not whether feedback works, but what kind of feedback works. This post looks at how John Hattie and colleagues answer that question.

Feedback Needs to Answer Three Questions

In their influential review The Power of Feedback, John Hattie and Helen Timperley (2007) argue that the purpose of feedback is to close the gap between where someone is and where they are trying to get to. To do that, feedback needs to answer three questions:

1. Feed up – Where am I going? What is the goal, and what does good work look like? Without clear goals and quality criteria, feedback has nothing to anchor to.
2. Feedback – How am I going? Where does the current performance stand in relation to that goal? This is the part we usually think of as “feedback”.
3. Feed forward – Where to next? What concrete steps will move the person closer to the goal?

The three questions work as a set. A comment like “This section is weak” answers only the middle question, and only vaguely. Compare it with: “The aim is to convince a sceptical reader (feed up). Right now the argument relies on one example (feedback). Adding a study that tests the claim directly would make it much stronger (feed forward).”

Of the three, feed forward is often the most neglected – and arguably the most useful. Knowing that something is off is rarely enough. People need to know what to do differently.

Four Levels of Feedback: Aim Higher Than the Task and the Self

Hattie and Timperley (2007) also point out that feedback can be aimed at four different levels:

1. Task: Whether the work is correct or complete
2. Process: The strategies used to do the work
3. Self-regulation: The person’s ability to monitor and steer their own work
4. Self: The person as a person

Feedback at the process and self-regulation levels tends to be the most powerful, because it builds skills that carry over to the next task.

Feedback about the self – general praise of the person – is the least effective. It feels pleasant, but it says nothing about the work, and it can shift attention away from the task and towards protecting one’s self-image.

Hattie and Timperley also caution against mixing the levels. Praise tucked into task feedback (“Great effort, but the y-axis needs a label”) tends to dilute the useful information rather than soften it.

Receiving Feedback

Feedback only has value if it is taken in.

Hattie and Timperley (2007) stress that feedback is something received and interpreted, not just something given. When people learn that there is a gap between where they are and where they want to be, they can respond in quite different ways.

They can increase their effort or find better strategies – the responses that lead to learning. But they can also lower their goal, abandon it, blur it, or simply reject the feedback.

Which path someone takes depends a lot on the feedback itself. Clear goals, specific information about the current state, and concrete next steps make the productive responses much more likely. Vague or personal feedback makes it easier to shrug the whole thing off.

Hattie also turns the usual picture around. In his view, some of the most powerful feedback flows to the teacher, manager or helper, not from them: seeking feedback on how well your own guidance is landing is what lets you adjust it.

Take-Home Message

Good feedback is not about praise or criticism. It is about information that helps someone move forward. Hattie’s three questions make sure that information is there: where are we going, where are we now, and what comes next. And by aiming feedback at the task, the process and self-regulation rather than at the person, we give people something they can actually use.

Done well, feedback turns from something we dread into one of the most valuable things we can give each other.

References

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112.

Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K., & Hattie, J. (2020). The power of feedback revisited: A meta-analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 3087.