Feedback, Assessment and Evaluation
Many people use these terms interchangeably but they are not exactly the same thing. Assessment and evaluation are about making judgments of something or someone. Feedback, on the other hand, provides formative or summative information to improve performance, proficiency and products or outcomes. Assessment is closely linked to feedback for learners, as it is often the source or basis for feedback. Understanding the difference and ensuring learners understand the difference can make negative feedback easier to give and receive. We have included some resources to help faculty and preceptors go beyond saying ‘good job’ to provide effective feedback and accurately assess or evaluate learners based on explicit criteria related to educational goals.
Just in Time
These Just in Time resources are ideal if you only have a couple of minutes to start finding out about Feedback and Evaluation.
Quick Teaching Tip: Feedback
Source: Virginia Apgar Academy of Medical Educators
Change the way you give feedback to your students with this quick teaching tip from the Virginia Apgar Academy of Medical Educators, a part of the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Additional Resources:
- Feedback: Arch Approach (PDF)
Learn the ARCH approach to providing feedback to learners. - Feedback vs. Evaluation: Getting Past the Reluctance To Deliver Negative Feedback (Link)
Emphasizes a “learning orientation” (where the goal is mastery), rather than a “performance orientation” (where the goal is validation of abilities). - Giving Feedback (Video)
Learn effective ways to provide feedback to students. - Take 5: Creating Effective Written Evaluations (Video)
Learners value educators taking the time to provide not only oral feedback, but also written comments. Christopher J. Boes, MD, provides recommendations to help write descriptive, specific, and growth-oriented comments. - Take 5: Cooking up Effective Feedback (Video)
Easy to remember and implement tips for constructing and delivering valuable verbal feedback to learners. - Take 5: Direct Observation (Video)
Majken Wingo, MD, shares a framework for observing residents in clinic and providing them with timely and meaningful feedback.
Deeper Dive
If you have more time to invest, these Deeper Dive resources are longer and/or more in depth so you can gain a deeper understanding of Feedback and Evaluation.
Coursera Teaching and Assessing Clinical Skills
Hosted on Coursera, this course will help you to improve feedback, clinical teaching, and assessment of clinical skills.
Presenter(s): Sally Santen, MD, PhD, Associate Professor – Emergency Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School
Education Essentials – COACHES for Formative Feedback- ICEP Module
Hosted on ICEP, this module will help you hone skills and ideas in providing high-quality “coaching” feedback to your learners.
To access ICEP, you will need to log in with a netID or guest account.
Feedback and Reflection: Teaching Methods for Clinical Settings
Academic Medicine. 2002 Dec. 77(12 pt 1): 1185-8.
Describes how to use these two complementary clinical teaching methods more effectively.
Feedback in Clinical Medical Education
JAMA. 1983 Aug. 250(6): 777-781.
Provides effective guidelines for giving feedback from literature in a variety of fields and adapted for use by teachers and students of clinical medicine.
Feedback: An Educational Model for Community-Based Teachers
Provides insightful tips on giving feedback, describes differences between feedback and evaluation, addresses barriers to giving feedback, and gives the reader case-based practice scenarios.
Getting Beyond “Good Job”: How to Give Effective Feedback
Pediatrics. 2011 Feb. 127(2): 205-7.
Learn why feedback is important, about barriers to feedback, and how to give constructive feedback.
Harvard Faculty Resources: Feedback
Explore Harvard Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning feedback resources. Available resources include articles, faculty research spotlights, or links to other resource sites.
Is That Student a 3 or an 8? Evaluation of Clinical Skills: Performance Dimension Training
Discusses ways to evaluate students accurately by recognizing limitations of idiosyncratic evaluation tendencies, developing explicit criteria to judge a particular clinical skill, and understanding the importance of agreed-upon explicit criteria in the evaluation of clinical skills.
Presenter(s): Jeremy Smith, MD
Peer observation of teaching is a valuable source of feedback to faculty. It can promote a dialogue between the observer and teacher, resulting in an increase in quality of teaching and learning. The SMPH Department of Medicine Education Committee developed these checklists for all teachers.
Discover the power of effective feedback by exploring this resource that emphasizes the importance of formative and summative feedback, offers practical guidelines for giving feedback, and provides strategies to maximize feedback conversations.
[Please note that access to the full version may require NetID login]
This SMPH learning repository module is a brief introduction to how to provide high quality feedback to learners.
Teaching Masters Program: Feedback
Presentation 6 of 7 in educational aspects of clinical teaching series. Focuses on feedback, the process by which teachers provide learners with information about their performance with the purpose of improving their performance. Key components covered include: characteristics of effective feedback and levels of feedback.
Presenter(s): Jeremy Smith, MD
Teaching Master’s Program: Evaluation
Presentation 5 of 7 in educational aspects of clinical teaching series. Focuses on evaluation, the process by which the teacher assesses the knowledge, skills and attitudes of learners based on criteria related to educational goals. Key components covered include: summative and formative types of evaluation, observation of learners, questioning and fostering self-assessment.
Presenter(s): Jeremy Smith, MD
Do you want to improve your coaching skills and help your learners succeed? Check out the COACH Program, a method for providing actionable feedback and guidance to guide learners’ development. This program focuses on specific behaviors and outcomes, and uses a four-box model to provide feedback. The COACH Program is applicable to a variety of learners, including medical students and postgraduate trainees. Watch the overview video to learn more about this effective coaching methodology.
Formative Assessment and Self‐Regulated Learning: A Model and Seven Principles of Good Feedback Practice
Studies in Higher Education. 2006 Apr. 31(2): 199-218.
[Please note that access to the full version may require netID login]
Reinterprets research on formative assessment and feedback to show how these processes can help students become self-regulated learners. Identifies seven principles of good feedback practice that support self-regulation.
When the Student Gave Me Feedback
Unveil the power of transformative feedback in this inspiring medical education story where a single insightful observation changed the course of a timid student’s journey. Discover the “Formative Feedback Unit” and its ability to foster growth in a safe learning environment.