Verbal Feedback

Aside from the passive and casual verbal feedback we receive in conversation (see sec-03-04-02), there is the explicit verbal feedback. As I’ll discuss below, verbal feedback is, by itself, a poor form of feedback, for both the sender and the receiver.

A common scenario for an exchange of verbal feedback is to ask, immediately after performing a task, such as a presentation, “What did you think?” or “How did I do?”. I’ve seen this scenario carried out many times in group and departmental seminars and I’m sure many of us have been on both the receiving and sending end of the conversation.

At a minimum, oral feedback needs to be well-structured and contextual, but this is exactly what verbal feedback lacks in the spontaneous, casual form.

One typical form of giving feedback is the sandwich model