How is feedback different from saying the same thing over and over again?

Answer 1

Feedback generally has a specific purpose, and is often provided under a specific circumstance. Some of the occasions when you might receive feedback include: an evaluation of your academic work (a project, a term paper, etc); being given advice after you have completed some task at work; or being told how you are doing after you have been at your job for a certain period of time. Sometimes, therapists also provide feedback, letting a client know about the progress (or lack of progress) that has been made recently.

Usually, feedback is given by a supervisor or someone who is more experienced than the person receiving it. For example, a student (let's call her Julia) sends a professor the rough draft of her term paper. The professor provides Julia with feedback-- advice about how to improve the paper and what needs to be included in order to get a good grade. Or at work, a supervisor provides an employee (let's call him David) with feedback because David is new and is not following company rules: the supervisor believes David is a good guy and is making mistakes out of not knowing the right way to do things, so the supervisor has a private meeting with David and offers feedback about how he can do a better job.

Sometimes, feedback may need to be delivered more than once because the person receiving it finds it difficult to make the improvements being requested. And sometimes, even though feedback is supposed to be for the purpose of helping the other person to improve, the person may take it as criticism and feel offended rather than helped. Also, while feedback is supposed to be to give the person a chance to improve, some supervisors use it as a weapon, to make the employee feel as if he or she is doing a terrible job.

But over all, feedback is very different from saying the same thing over and over: feedback is often requested (the student asked her professor, "Am I on the right track with my paper? Is there something I should fix before I turn it in?); or it is part of a review at work (the supervisor called David in and said, "I think you are doing some things very well, but I'd like to discuss with you some ways you can improve and do an even better job"). When a person just says the same thing to you over and over, that's nagging, and it often causes you to tune the person out completely, since nobody likes to be nagged. (On the other hand, the person doing the nagging may feel he or she is just offering feedback-- but that is not a very helpful way to provide it.)