Why Being Too Quick to Offer Feedback Could Inhibit Learning

Part of becoming better practicers and more independent learners, is developing the ability to monitor our own playing and identify errors, so we can fix these errors in future repetitions.

The problem, of course, is that when we’re learning something new, it’s often not so clear to us what we’re doing correctly and what we’re doing incorrectly.

So one of the ways we get better at gauging our performance is to receive feedback from someone more knowledgable than ourselves.

But if we just keep getting feedback from someone else, how does this help us learn to teach ourselves? Aren’t we just back where we started, dependent on this more experienced feedback-giver?

Well, not exactly. It might be a timing thing.

Eh? How’s that now?

Pooping puppies

Some years ago, my family took in a little puppy. Super cute, but potty training quickly become the bane of my existence.

But I did learn a lot. I learned, for instance, that puppies need immediate feedback for a behavior to stick. Like, if I walk into the living room and discover that he pooped on the floor, it’s already too late to do anything about it. I can’t track him down and say, “Hey, remember when you pooped over here earlier this afternoon? That’s a no-no. Bad doggie.” He doesn’t get it. He’s just like “yeah, whatever, rub my belly, oh wait is it time to eat now?” and wags his tail.

If I want him to understand that we are not fans of his indoor pooping shenanigans, I have to catch him in the act, and rush him outside so I can give him immediate praise for doing the correct thing. Because if the feedback isn’t immediate, he has no idea what he did to deserve the praise. It’s all about connecting an action with immediate positive feedback. Over and over, until he gets it.

But we’re not puppies.

Or…are we?

Feedback for optimal learning

76 college students were recruited for a study designed to explore how the timing of feedback might affect the learning process (Swinnen et al., 1990).

They were split into 3 groups, and asked to learn a relatively straightforward motor task¹.

The goal of the motor task was to be able to perform a specific movement, but make sure that it takes exactly 1000 milliseconds from beginning to end. Sort of like telling someone that they have to conduct a bar of 3/8, and their movements have to take precisely 1 second from one downbeat to the next.

Everyone had 90 practice repetitions to learn this new skill, and were given their time score after each attempt, so they could get a sense of how well they were doing.

But not everyone received their time score (i.e. feedback) about their performance at the same time.

Feedback timing

One group – the instantaneous feedback group – was allowed to see their time score instantly, as soon as they completed each repetition.

Another group – the delayed feedback group – had to wait 8 seconds before seeing their time score.

The third group – the delay+estimation group – had to wait 8 seconds before getting their time score too. And in addition, they had to estimate what their time score was, and report their best guess 4 seconds after finishing each practice attempt.

Retention tests

During the practice phase, there were no significant differences in performance between the 3 groups. They all performed better as practice went on, and improved their performance at about the same rate.

However, we know from other research, that the rate at which our performance improves during practice is NOT a very good indication of how effectively we’re learning. As in, just because the level of our playing improves rapidly (or not) during today’s practice session, doesn’t mean that we’re going to be able to start off at this level tomorrow.

So the researchers did some “retention” tests, to see how well the participants would be able to perform this new skill after taking a break. They also took the timer away, so none of the participants received any feedback about their time score, or how they were doing.

And what did they find?

10 minutes later…

The first set of retention trials was done 10 minutes after their initial training. Which is not a huge gap, but you know, sometimes we can get into a groove and feel good about a passage, but when we come back to it a few minutes later, it’s gone back to crap again, as if we hadn’t worked on it at all.

So at the 10-minute retention test, there were…no significant differences in performance between the three groups.

2 days later…

To get a much clearer sense of how much skill was retained, they also had everyone come back to the lab two days later. And this is where the differences in learning between the groups began to emerge.

Those who received instantaneous feedback during practice performed the worst, with time scores that averaged 156.9 milliseconds off of the target time. Their performance also seemed to be a bit more erratic.

Those who received feedback after an 8 second delay, did better. Their average scores were 131.3 milliseconds off of the target time (a 17.7% difference).

The participants in the delay+estimate group, who had an 8-second delay plus were asked to estimate their own performance after each repetition, did the best. Their average time score was only 90.8 milliseconds off of the target time (a 53.4% difference).

Takeaways

I once had a tennis coach who made me call out “good” or “bad” after hitting each ball. Not in terms of whether the ball landed in the court or not, but in terms of whether I made good contact. The idea was for me to become increasingly less dependent on his feedback, and more in tune with my own sense of whether I was hitting the ball cleanly or not.

Similarly, I wonder if students could perhaps benefit from a little less feedback at times. Or at least a little less immediate feedback, so that they have an opportunity to do some error-detecting of their own before we chime in.

The study reminded me of something one of my teachers used to often do. Where after I finished playing, he would ask me what I thought. And not in terms of whether I thought I played well or poorly, or regarding obvious technical details like intonation or sound quality, but more in terms of what my musical intentions were for the piece, and whether I successfully communicated them to the listener or not.

I imagine it must have taken a supreme amount of patience for him to wait and listen as I hemmed and hawed about my playing, and offered what could not have been a very insightful response.

But I do think that in forcing me to be more reflective, and think more deeply about my playing before hearing his thoughts, I likely took away much more from these lessons than I realized in the moment.

And at the end of the day, that’s kind of the point of it all, no? To cultivate musicians who can think for themselves; not just instrument-players who follow instructions really well.

References

Swinnen, S. P., Schmidt, R. A., Nicholson, D. E., & Shapiro, D. C. (1990). Information feedback for skill acquisition: Instantaneous knowledge of results degrades learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition, 16(4), 706–716. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.16.4.706