Training Feedback: Our 3 Tips for Making the Best Use of It!

Feedback is an essential tool for improving the effectiveness of training courses. By providing regular and appropriate feedback, it allows learners to correct their mistakes, strengthen their skills and progress towards their goals. According to the meta-analysis by John Hattie (1996), feedback has a significant impact on learning performance, with an effect size of 0.70, placing this tool among the most effective for the acquisition of skills. However, using feedback well remains a challenge: its frequency, relevance and formulation have a direct impact on its effectiveness. This article offers concrete advice to maximize the impact of feedback in your training systems.

Why is feedback essential for effective learning?

Feedback is at the heart of learning, because it meets a fundamental need of the human brain: adjust your predictions to make progress. This is what we call the predictive brain, each time an action is carried out, the brain anticipates a result. When a gap appears between this expectation and reality, feedback is needed to rectify mistakes and reinforce knowledge. Without these returns, learning stagnates.

Let's take an example: When a learner plays guitar, their brain anticipates what sound they should hear based on their actions. If the sound produced does not match this expectation, a discrepancy is created, signaling an error. This feedback (whether through sound or through external correction) allows the brain to readjust its actions in order to progress.

In a training context, uAn exercise without accurate feedback is like a compass without a needle. It can reveal gaps, but only feedback can guide the learner to fill in the gaps. In particular, it makes it possible to counter the phenomenon. Illusion of mastery : a phenomenon that occurs when a person believes that they have acquired a skill or mastered a task, when in reality, they have not reached a sufficient level of mastery. This often happens in the absence of adequate feedback, which prevents the individual from becoming aware of their mistakes and correcting their actions in order to move forward.

Transforming feedback into truly helpful feedback

Instead of distinguishing between positive and negative feedback, it's time to adopt an approach that focuses on helpful feedback. The binary classification between “good” and “bad” feedback is often counterproductive, as it focuses more on the emotion generated than on the educational objective. Helpful feedback, on the other hand, guides the learner according to his needs, without judgment, and with concrete solutions. This approach turns feedback into a constructive tool that really supports the development of skills.

The three rules of helpful feedback

To be truly effective, helpful feedback must:

1. Clearly identify the difficulty : Specify the error or missing item.
2. Avoid value judgments : Stay factual and avoid negative or unclear formulations.
3. Orient towards a solution : Indicate a resource or example to consult to improve.

By accompanying each exercise with structured feedback, you help learners identify their shortcomings, correct their mistakes and anchor their knowledge in the long term.

• If the answer is correct, feedback reinforces memory by consolidating Memory anchoring, making information more stable and sustainable.
• If the answer is incorrect, feedback makes it possible to correct and adjust neural connections, by refining paths thus breaking the illusion of control.

Educational AI or how to systematize feedback within your training

All these elements show that systematizing feedback turns training into an iterative, engaging, and truly impacting process for learning. However, implementing this process in large-scale training courses is a challenge.

This is where educational AI comes in as a real lever. By automating the creation of personalized feedback, it transforms raw content into interactive and engaging learning tools. What was once a utopia is now a reality: AI makes it possible to democratize effective pedagogy, where each learner benefits from quality support, without compromising on the time or resources required. To go further, An AI coach can also ask your learners to explain what they have learned in their own words and to give them personalized feedback.

Do you want to know how to integrate this approach into your training?
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