THE DIMENSION
Seeking specific information that can inform the next learning attempt.
The dimension in context
Seeking specific information that can inform the next learning attempt.
You may ask questions that make feedback actionable.
You may prefer independent evaluation or lack useful feedback sources.
An illustrative work situation
A participant receives feedback that their work should be more strategic. The comment signals an expectation but does not identify a behavior to change. The participant needs to understand which decision, connection, or consequence the reviewer expected to see before choosing a useful development activity.
Feedback seeking is not simply collecting more opinions. Different reviewers may use the same word for different expectations. A useful reflection asks whether the participant obtained an example, understood the context, and decided what information to use. Agreement with every comment is not the objective.
A small practice to examine
Ask the reviewer to identify one part of the work and describe what a more useful alternative would have made possible. Compare that example with the task’s purpose. Choose one change to test and return with a specific question about its effect. Keep disagreement visible where the expectations remain incompatible.
Repeated feedback requests can displace independent work.
A question for closer study
What makes feedback actionable without treating the reviewer’s preference as an unquestionable standard?
Read the example alongside the research
The following editorial passages come from the linked framework chapters. They provide context for the original teaching example above; the example is fictional and is not a reported study finding.
An MLP exercise asks the learner to choose one observer, one feature to examine, and one question. After receiving feedback, they paraphrase the suggestion, identify what they will test, and note any reason it may not apply. The next attempt provides information about the suggestion itself. Higher feedback inquiry can become burdensome if every small decision is outsourced, while lower inquiry may reflect useful independent checking or a lack of safe observers. The report should not infer defensiveness from disagreement with feedback. It should help the participant distinguish a specific observation, an interpretation, and an optional recommendation.
Continue: Feedback becomes useful through a specific question →
“Learn more about presentations” may be a useful interest, but it does not identify what to do next. “Explain one complex finding to a non-specialist audience using a clear example” provides a more usable target. Yet overprecision can also be costly if the learner does not yet understand the domain. Early exploration may be needed before a sensible objective can be defined. The report should recognize both stages rather than prescribe detailed goals in every situation.
Continue: Writing a learning goal that guides an actual attempt →
An MLP exercise uses a short review after one attempt: what was intended, what happened, what evidence supports the explanation, and what small change comes next. The participant includes a plausible alternative explanation to avoid turning the review into self-justification. Higher review responses can still be unhelpful if reflection becomes endless or punitive. Lower responses may reflect rapid informal learning that the questionnaire wording fails to capture. A development conversation should examine the usefulness of the review, not merely whether the participant writes reflective notes or uses a fashionable learning vocabulary.
Continue: A mistake is a starting point for analysis, not an automatic lesson →
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
VandeWalle (1997), original publication ↗Kluger & DeNisi - The effects of feedback interventions on performance ↗Zimmerman - Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview ↗Bell & Kozlowski - Active learning: Effects of core training design elements ↗Keith & Frese - Effectiveness of error management training: A meta-analysis ↗Tannenbaum & Cerasoli - Do team and individual debriefs enhance performance? ↗