Learning is more effective, and maintained better, if we get some feedback regarding what are the consequences of our activities. If we have to walk to a distant destination, we often stop on the way to assess the distance covered. This mental exercise provides us feedback on the current level of performance suggesting ways to change our method of learning, if necessary.
Similarly, the feedback or the knowledge of result at appropriate times during the course of learning tends to enhance the rate of learning and the quality of performance. Feedback initiates a self-reflective exercise of knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses. Students, while studying, should create conditions so that they can get feedback on their mastery of each unit or chapter covered. Feedback can help them monitor their progress of learning and maintain their level of motivation for the targeted task. It will tell the students what they have mastered and what are their weak spots.
In experiments with animals, the reinforcement works as a kind of feedback to the organism in terms of strengthening a response. The feedback or the knowledge of result for the responses made by humans carries a cognitive connotation. In human conceptual learning tasks, feedback is important because of the information it provides the learner, both with respect to what hypothesis seems to be correct, and to the elimination of incorrect hypothesis.
The nature of feedback may range from getting information about how bodily processes work (biofeedback) to receiving knowledge of the results of our mental performance. Biofeedback is a behavior modification technique emanating from the principles of operant conditioning. How does biofeedback work? Suppose we want to reduce an individual’s muscle tension. His muscle tension is monitored and fed back to him. The degree of muscle tension is linked to the loudness of a tone. So the individual observes that the loudness of the tone increases as muscle tension rises, and decreases as the muscle tension drops. This is the biofeedback technique through which, the individual learns to control muscle tension. The reinforcement is the raising or the lowering of the tone as a feedback to tell the individual about the degree of muscle tension. It is this awareness that helps in learning the desired behaviors.
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In cases of simple learning such as a drawing a line, the feedback exercises a powerful influence in altering subject’s mode of response. A simple illustration will drive the point home. Ask a person, while blindfolded, to draw a line five inches long, and keep a record of his performance in successive trials. You will observe, there will be no improvement from trial to trial. Then ask someone to do the same thing, but this time, provide feedback to the person regarding whether he is doing it right or wrong. Then observe his performance. You will notice that errors would decrease rapidly, and improvement in performance would be noticed. Such a simple experience would convince you that feedback or knowledge of results serves as a powerful tool in increasing the rate and accuracy of learning.
For more complex forms of learning as is evident in learning school lessons, feedback or knowledge of results maintains learner’s motivation by keeping him on the task. One aspect of feedback that has been examined is the time delay between the learner’s response and informative feedback. The correct learning should be immediately followed by a feedback; immediate knowledge of results helps the learner distinguish between the right and the wrong responses, and prevents the wrong associations from being unintentionally reinforced. In animal learning experiments, the delay of reward produces a marked effect on learning, but in human learning, particularly relating to concepts and principles, the delay of feedback does not produce as pronounced an effect.