Negative Feedback

Negative feedback is clear, pointed, frequent, and directed at very specific aspects of students’ performances, especially the musical effects created. Negative feedback is given succinctly and is pointedly directed at improving performance quality. The frequency of negative feedback is markedly higher than the frequency of positive feedback. The content of negative feedback is consistently quite specific and explicit, making the students privy to the teachers’ highly refined auditory discriminations. This contributes to students’ learning to make finer discriminations about their own playing. The clarity and directness of the negative feedback facilitates the efficient correction of errors.