Victor M Goode, “There is a Method(ology) to This Madness: A Review and Analysis of Feedback in the Clinical Process”

This article examines feedback and its position in clinical legal education. Feedback is a tool used to enhance student learning and is of singular importance to nearly every aspect of clinical teaching. Good feedback is honest. To safeguard the teacher-student relationship, it should be specific, individualized, timely, rely on objective criteria, and focus directly on observed behaviour.

Secondary tenants of good supervision in the clinical context include a focus on:

1. The professional lawyering tasks upon which the student teacher “team” is focusing on behalf of the client;
2. The educational purposes of the specific interaction;
3. The setting of the interaction (i.e., the physical location, the identity of the participants);
4. The form of teaching (formal sessions, scheduled, unscheduled, “spontaneous,” brief, lengthy, etc.);
5. The sophistication of the student’s knowledge.

This article further highlights the psychological model of how and why feedback changes recipients’ consciousness to enable effective work. Several feedback theories are presented, including feedback intervention, cognitive feedback, and social judgement theories.

Feedback intervention theory explains the inconsistent effects of feedback on performance. It postulates that effective feedback occurs when the recipient’s attention is focused on the task at hand rather than on self-image.  Feedback focused on the latter can impede performance, whereas feedback that directs the recipients’ attention to the motivational level of their consciousness should improve performance.

Cognitive feedback theory is a model of how individuals in uncertain environments make judgements and how cognitive feedback improves that process. This model seeks to upgrade performance by manipulating one or more variables: knowledge, control, and achievement.

Social judgement theory looks at the degree to which judgement corresponds to self-perception of personal actions. This is a valuable teaching/ learning tool. However, it has little real-world application.

Victor M Goode, “There is a Method(ology) to This Madness: A Review and Analysis of Feedback in the Clinical Process” (2000) 53:2 Okla L Rev 223.