⇑Memletics Manual » Process Chapter » eNquire » Immediate feedback

Get immediate feedback, but not too much

One of the key reasons one-on-one instruction is effective is that it provides you with instant feedback while you learn. The right instruction when first starting helps considerably. Without this, you might have to relearn something. Unlearning wrong knowledge, and replacing it with new knowledge, is a lot harder (and more time consuming) than learning the correct way the first time.

While immediate feedback helps when you are first learning a task or skill, continual feedback can have a negative effect. To understand this, let’s look at an example. In the early stages of flight training, you want an instructor there to give you immediate feedback and avoid danger. However, it can be dangerous if your instructor continues to prompt you every time you start getting too low or slow, for example.

How can it be dangerous? You don’t get the opportunity to recognize and correct the error yourself, as you have to do when your instructor is not there. At some point, you need to fly alone, and without the feedback you previously received from the instructor, you may get yourself into trouble.

The name for this feedback is augmented feedback. You may not always receive this extra feedback during the task. While continual augmented feedback may help you perform well during training, you must also train without it. If you don’t train without it, you are less likely to perform well longer term.

Most good instructors reduce feedback over time. Some do this more effectively than others. For example, in flight training one instructor may correct a flight plan miscalculation for you. Another may let you fly with the mistake. As a result, you become lost during your flight. This is a great learning opportunity! You’d miss this opportunity if your instructor simply corrected mistakes for you every time.

While your training performance may be lower for that particular flight, the exercise does have a worthwhile long-term positive effect. You are more likely to handle similar circumstances well if they happen sometime after you finish your training. Why? Because reduced feedback often leads to task variety and task interference—both good for learning. In this example, the reduced feedback results in an increase in the variety and interference in the following flight. You get a variation in navigation training by having to find your location after getting lost. You also get interference from the likely stress you put yourself under when you realize you are not sure of your location.

It’s good for you to understand this principle so you can seek more or less feedback as you feel you need. You can often use the principle yourself. For example, navigation aids such as a compass and GPS provide augmented feedback. Ensure you do some training without these aids.