Give constructive feedback to interns

Feedback can help the intern and the supervisor assess and adjust tasks, learning goals, workload, and progress towards a deadline.

Giving feedback is one thing but it is not complete without a response from the person receiving the feedback.

Motivations to give feedback could be, for example, to help interns to:

• understand how other people perceive and interpret the intern’s words and actions.
• reflect on what they could change about their communication and their actions.
• to better achieve their intended tasks or learning goals.

Examples of general feedback which are not very helpful for learning what to do or how to act in a future similar situation/task:

• “That was a good presentation.”
• “Well done!”
• “Your work is OK.”
• “Your presentation was boring.”
• “You did it wrong.”

With these above examples, the intern has no information on why their work was good or poor, or what to keep or change the next time she/he does similar work.

Specific feedback would expand on the above comments, for example:

• “That was a good presentation. You explained X clearly and your slides were easy to follow.”
• “Well done! I like how you solved the problem of X and then decided to…”
• “Your work is OK. However, I think you need to…”
• “Your presentation was a bit boring. You spoke very fast and had a lot of information on the slides in very small font. It was very hard for us to understand you and we could not read the information on the slides.”
• “You did it wrong. Let’s review the steps together and work out what happened.”

Knowing why something is good or not good is important for learning and developing critical thinking skills. Understanding why something went wrong and how to improve or change something is important for motivation and for fostering initiative and creativity in our future engineering professionals.

Effective feedback practices include:

• describe what was seen or heard – focus on the facts
• be specific rather than general (see examples below)
• direct feedback on things which the intern can change or control
• check that the intern has understood by asking them to rephrase your feedback

Feedback is effective when interns:

• listen and accept the feedback as genuine and helpful
• give the feedback serious thought and decide the consequences of changing or not changing
• respond and engage in a dialogue