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In view of the increasingly prominent use in schools and colleges of performance indicators, inspection, appraisal and other forms of performance feedback, it seems important to know what evidence there is that such feedback will produce any improvement in standards, and under what conditions this may be expected to occur. The plausible view that people who receive feedback on a task perform better than those who do not is found to be not universally supported by the empirical evidence. Theories which try to account for the effects of feedback on performance are limited in scope, too vague to be readily operationalized or to enable predictions to be made, and/or supported by only some of the available evidence.

An attempt is made to identify the significant variables which mediate the effects of feedback on performance. Important characteristics of the task include its complexity, the balance between the …