What's The Challenge? - Feedback emPower Tools

This website exists because of a challenge. We see this challenge when we work with students, and we see it in our own lives and those of our friends and families. The challenge is that we receive feedback all the time. And even though we know it’s usually meant to help us, in practice it’s often a painful and frustrating experience. Why isn’t it easier to let people help us?

We created Feedback emPower Tools to support students, trainees, employees, and all other learners, to confront this challenge. To empower people to find the unobvious value in their feedback; taking ownership of this challenge in ways that support their independence, and confidence, in tackling any kind of feedback. And we did it so that educators can empower their students too, by scaffolding their progress along this journey.

Five big principles underpin this website:

1
Receiving feedback won’t magically make you improve
Even the best advice will make no difference to your performance, if you ignore it. Feedback comments can be some of the most powerful drivers of improvement, but this improvement depends on you turning comments into action.
2
Engaging with feedback is difficult, and that’s a human thing! (see Infographic A)
It’s easy to feel alone in your struggles with feedback. Yet the many barriers that stop you using feedback easily are common to most people. Identifying and understanding these barriers can be part of the solution!
3
You can get better at using feedback! (see Infographic B)
Our difficulties in using feedback aren’t inevitable. Getting better at it requires skills, knowledge, and confidence, all of which can be built given the right scaffolding and tools.
4
Deep dialogues about feedback aren’t always an option
It’s great to have constructive chats with whoever gives you feedback comments. But learners also need tools and strategies they can apply for themselves, whenever these opportunities are unavailable or unwanted.
5
No AI chatbot or miracle cure can replace the need for your thinking (see Infographic C)
Genuine improvement in your skills can only happen if you’re the one doing the legwork: without your attention, reflection, and application of your ideas, any improvements you make will be illusions.

Barriers that prevent us from using feedback

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Different types of feedback skills and habits

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The fundamental processes of engaging with feedback

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Want to know more?

Here’s some of our own research on these topics (click titles for direct access)

Winstone, N. E., Nash, R. A., Parker, M., & Rowntree, J. (2017). Supporting learners’ agentic engagement with feedback: A systematic review and a taxonomy of recipience processes. Educational Psychologist, 52, 17-37.
Nash, R. A., & Winstone, N. E. (2017). Responsibility-sharing in the giving and receiving of assessment feedback. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1519.
Winstone, N. E., Nash, R. A., Rowntree, J., & Parker, M. (2017). ‘It’d be useful, but I wouldn’t use it’: Barriers to university students’ feedback seeking and recipience. Studies in Higher Education, 42, 2026-2041.
Winstone, N. E., Balloo, K., & Carless, D. (2022). Discipline-specific feedback literacies: A framework for curriculum design. Higher Education, 83(1), 57-77.
Winstone, N. E., & Nash, R. A. (2023). Toward a cohesive psychological science of effective feedback. Educational Psychologist, 58, 111-129.
Nash, R. A., & Balloo, K., (2025, Jan 17). As students become more ‘distant’, can feedback still hit the mark? Times Higher Education.

What’s The Challenge?

What’s The Challenge?

Five big principles underpin this website:

Receiving feedback won’t magically make you improve
Even the best advice will make no difference to your performance, if you ignore it. Feedback comments can be some of the most powerful drivers of improvement, but this improvement depends on you turning comments into action.

You can get better at using feedback! (see Infographic B)
Our difficulties in using feedback aren’t inevitable. Getting better at it requires skills, knowledge, and confidence, all of which can be built given the right scaffolding and tools.

Deep dialogues about feedback aren’t always an option
It’s great to have constructive chats with whoever gives you feedback comments. But learners also need tools and strategies they can apply for themselves, whenever these opportunities are unavailable or unwanted.

**No AI chatbot or miracle cure can replace the need for your thinking** (see Infographic C)
Genuine improvement in your skills can only happen if you’re the one doing the legwork: without your attention, reflection, and application of your ideas, any improvements you make will be illusions.

Barriers that prevent us from using feedback

Different types of feedback skills and habits

The fundamental processes of engaging with feedback

Want to know more?

Want to know more?

Here’s some of our own research on these topics (click titles for direct access)

What’s The Challenge?

What’s The Challenge?

Five big principles underpin this website:

Receiving feedback won’t magically make you improve Even the best advice will make no difference to your performance, if you ignore it. Feedback comments can be some of the most powerful drivers of improvement, but this improvement depends on you turning comments into action.

You can get better at using feedback! (see Infographic B) Our difficulties in using feedback aren’t inevitable. Getting better at it requires skills, knowledge, and confidence, all of which can be built given the right scaffolding and tools.

Deep dialogues about feedback aren’t always an option It’s great to have constructive chats with whoever gives you feedback comments. But learners also need tools and strategies they can apply for themselves, whenever these opportunities are unavailable or unwanted.

No AI chatbot or miracle cure can replace the need for your thinking (see Infographic C) Genuine improvement in your skills can only happen if you’re the one doing the legwork: without your attention, reflection, and application of your ideas, any improvements you make will be illusions.

Barriers that prevent us from using feedback

Different types of feedback skills and habits

The fundamental processes of engaging with feedback

Want to know more?

Want to know more?

Here’s some of our own research on these topics (click titles for direct access)

Receiving feedback won’t magically make you improve
Even the best advice will make no difference to your performance, if you ignore it. Feedback comments can be some of the most powerful drivers of improvement, but this improvement depends on you turning comments into action.

You can get better at using feedback! (see Infographic B)
Our difficulties in using feedback aren’t inevitable. Getting better at it requires skills, knowledge, and confidence, all of which can be built given the right scaffolding and tools.

Deep dialogues about feedback aren’t always an option
It’s great to have constructive chats with whoever gives you feedback comments. But learners also need tools and strategies they can apply for themselves, whenever these opportunities are unavailable or unwanted.

**No AI chatbot or miracle cure can replace the need for your thinking** (see Infographic C)
Genuine improvement in your skills can only happen if you’re the one doing the legwork: without your attention, reflection, and application of your ideas, any improvements you make will be illusions.