Providing Effective Feedback

How can I apply this framework during my student's practice placement?

Now that you have a basic understanding of the framework, let's unwrap each process and see how it could be applied specifically to occupational therapy student practice.

"I benefited from the structured format of the SPEF-R, I found the categorisation of performance components very clear and objective. This enabled me to obtain specific, constructive feedback." - Student

1. Having explicit criteria and standards.

The SPEF-R2^© already provides this foundation. You will strengthen this process even further with your own customised item examples. Your examples highlight what you consider is crucial in your workplace, and ensures that the criteria are relevant.

You could try: 

• Making sure you have customised the item examples on the SPEF-R2 to add emphasis to critical aspects of your practice and to ensure relevance to your workplace.
• Thinking through ahead of time how the rating scale standards translate to your workplace.

2. Encouraging students to engage actively with the criteria and standards.

"The SPEF-R has been a useful resource, it’s helped me to think critically about my performance and my progress as a student." - Student

Engagement with criteria and standards can begin during orientation. Specific ideas are found in the diagram below, and are expanded upon later in the module. Encouraging your student to engage with the criteria and standards then continues throughout the practice placement. This can occur informally as opportunities naturally arise, and more formally during supervision and at times of evaluation.

You could try: 

• Beginning at orientation, and then during subsequent supervision and formal evaluation meetings - discussing/reviewing the SPEF-R2 learning objectives and related items. In orientation, be sure to highlight your customised examples.
• Using these opportunities to also discuss the rating scale and how these standards translate to the specific knowledge, skills and behaviours required by your workplace. What could they “look like” at different standards on the scale? This could be done in conjunction with Appendix A of the SPEF-R2 User Manual: Applying the rating scale – an example.
• Giving your student the opportunity to ask questions about the rating scale/criteria. He or she may wish to bring up and clarify experiences from previous practice placements.

3. Feedback processes, including practice educator and peer feedback and self-evaluation.

Feedback too is an ongoing process. Usually it will involve yourself and ideally your student. You may or may not have access to other students to provide peer feedback. Some students may find evaluating their own performance uncomfortable. You may need to specify a focus to avoid very general observations being offered …"I think I did OK". e.g. You may ask them to identify three instances where they demonstrated sound communication skills. Remember if you are facilitating peer feedback that some preparatory information and modelling is required to avoid inappropriate feedback being given.

"I found that the SPEF-R was a good tool to use when reflecting on my own progress throughout placements and a good tool to utilise to determine future goals." - Student

Asking your student to use the SPEF-R2^© to self evaluate at halfway and final evaluation can also be a very valuable learning process. Remember if you are facilitating peer feedback that some preparatory information and modelling is required to avoid inappropriate feedback being given.

"When asking students to self evaluate using SPEF-R2 I encourage them to provide evidence for their own scoring, relating scores to concrete behaviours." - Practice Educator

You could try: 

• Asking your student to nominate in advance the specific aspects of work they wish to receive feedback on – e.g. what will their key focus of the session/meeting/presentation be in terms of their own skill development.
• Providing your student with the opportunity to assess their own work before (or in addition to) receiving feedback from others. This may be in relation to a specific occasion of service or in preparation for supervision or halfway/final evaluation. (* Many students find self-evaluation using the SPEF-R2 disconcerting due to their concern that they may over or under-rate their performance. You may want to stress that the act of you each identifying consistent strengths and emerging skill areas is more important than ‘matching’ rating scale numbers.)
• Agreeing to record your student’s performance – then giving them the opportunity to watch and provide reflections on what they have observed. Remember – being recorded is potentially stressful and they may feel uncomfortable at first!

You could try:  

• Wording feedback constructively – focus on what needs to be done well rather than on what has been done poorly. In the feedback/recommendations sections of the SPEF-R2, you are encouraged to record comments in terms of desired behaviours.
• Wording feedback to reflect that your comments are based on evidence of learning – not on the student themselves i.e. feedback is based on what you have seen the student do, heard them say, on what they have written etc – and not on their ‘personality’.
• Using terms such as ‘evidence’ in wording feedback – especially where performance is judged to be of a low or inadequate standard, e.g. your discussion provided little evidence of familiarity with the clinical notes.
• Becoming familiar with/developing your own examples of the ‘feedback formula’. (You will find out more about this following the feedback cycle.)
• Peer feedback – providing students with information about/modelling and explaining effective feedback practices prior to facilitating peer feedback sessions. This is imperative to ensure peer feedback is effective and appropriate.
• Requiring group moderation of feedback on peers’ work (e.g. students confer and agree on the feedback to be provided to a group member rather than providing individual feedback).

4. Encouraging active engagement with feedback.

I believe the SPEF-R enabled me to identify my skills, strengths and weaknesses and allowed me to improve on these. The SPEF-R highlighted examples to me of practice that I will be able to transfer into any OT field.

 - Student

Your student may need you to structure activities to assist them to engage with feedback. This helps to avoid the situation where practice educators feel frustrated that the time and effort they have spent providing quality feedback has been wasted, and their feedback ignored. Engaging your student with feedback can start even before the activity in question is carried out. You could ask your student to nominate the focus of feedback from a learning experience e.g. that feedback focuses on the clarity of information they provided to the service user. This way you will be concentrating on an area the student is motivated by. At other times you may require that your student shows evidence that they have understood and are acting on the feedback that has been given.

You could try: 

• Requiring that your student compare self-assessment with your own and/or peer feedback - and develop a response.
• Asking your student to nominate a specific area of performance that they are trying to improve before engaging in a learning task.
• Developing routines and procedures that require your student to reflect on feedback provided and to identify implications for future learning (e.g. updating/modifying personal learning objectives following each supervision meeting, identifying required actions).
• When you have more than one student, initiating a roster system for pairs of students to summarise the feedback provided during a session and reporting this back to the group orally or via email.
• Requiring your student to articulate their response to previous educator and/or peer feedback before attempting a new task.

How should I word my feedback?

Obviously there is not one correct way to put feedback as perhaps the word formula may suggest. Nor does it mean that feedback is contrived. The following principles contained in the feedback formula however are widely accepted as being helpful in communicating what needs to be said in an effective and objective manner.

• Address the work not the person.
• Include terms such as 'evidence' and 'observed'.
• Begin positively.
• Use an encouraging expression, refer to a desirable outcome or use a passive voice e.g. it is generally considered
• Offer explicit suggestions for improvement
• Refer to consequences

Please refer to the feedback formula table (PDF, 93.9 KB) which expands each principle with specific work place examples. Incorporating these principles into your feedback will help you to provide clear, encouraging and instructive information. They can also be particularly helpful in situations where your student may want to challenge what you are presenting.

Sometimes there can be a mismatch between how much feedback practice educators feel they have given, and how much information their students have recognised as feedback. It can be helpful, during discussions to overtly flag your comments as 'feedback' e.g. You have identified …. My key feedback is, I noticed….

While some examples have been added to the feedback table to clarify each principle it can be beneficial to think of and record examples that fit your particular workplace. This may help the process become quicker and feel more natural for you. You are able to download the feedback formula table (PDF, 552.1 KB) in a fillable PDF form which allows you to add your own examples.

View a vignette of a practice educator using a combination of educator, peer and student self-evaluation.

Notice the variety of strategies used to actively engage the students in the learning and feedback process.
The vignette runs approx 2 minutes.

Use the activity sheet (PDF, 174.9 KB) to help you get the most from the vignette

 

 

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