The Feedback Intervention Paradox
Across 607 results, feedback helped performance on average and still made it worse more than a third of the time. Whether the feedback was positive or negative did not decide which. Where it sent the person's attention did.
The feedback intervention paradox: feedback improves performance on average, and still makes it worse more than a third of the time. Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi found it in 1996 after keeping 131 of roughly 3,000 papers: the ones with a no-feedback comparison group.
Across 607 results and 23,663 observations, feedback gave a moderate boost on average. Over 38% went the other way. Whether the feedback was positive or negative did not explain which way it went.
What explained it was where the feedback sent the person's attention. Feedback that kept attention on the task, such as the correct answer or how much someone had improved since last time, did the most good. Feedback that pulled attention up to the self did less. Praise weakened the effect, and so did anything that threatened self-esteem.
Once someone is working out what a comment says about them, the task gets what attention is left. That is why "you're a natural" and "you need to be more strategic" can fail for the same reason.
The nudge: Before your next piece of feedback, check the subject of your sentence. If it is the person, rewrite it so the subject is the work.
Source: Kluger & DeNisi, The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory, Psychological Bulletin (1996)
