Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 33:89–103, 2013
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0160-8061 print/1540-8604 online
DOI: 10.1080/01608061.2013.785879

RESEARCH ARTICLES

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A Component Analysis of the Impact ofEvaluative and Objective Feedback
on Performance
DOUGLAS A. JOHNSON
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA

Despite the frequency with which performance feedback interventions are used in organizational behavior management, component analyses of such feedback are rare. It has been suggested
that evaluation of performance and objective details about performance are two necessary components for performance feedback.
The present study was designed to help clarify which components
are required for maximal effectiveness by comparing four conditions: (a) combined evaluative and objective feedback, (b) evaluative feedback alone, (c) objective feedback alone, and (d) no
feedback. A total of 105 undergraduate students were recruited
to work on a simulated bank check processing task while being
exposed to one of the four feedback conditions. The number ofchecks correctly processed served as the dependent variable. Results
suggest that a combination of objective and evaluative feedback isnecessary for maximal performance.
KEYWORDS evaluative feedback, objective feedback
Performance feedback is one of the most common interventions in organizational behavior management (OBM), with 65% to 70% of OBM interventions
utilizing feedback either alone or in combination with some other intervention component (Balcazar, Shupert, Daniels, Mawhinney, & Hopkins,
1989; Bucklin, Alvero, Dickinson, Austin, & Jackson, 2000; Nolan, Jarema,& Austin, 1999). For example, a literature review by Alvero, Bucklin, andAddress correspondence to Douglas A. Johnson, P.O. Box 20415, Kalamazoo, MI 49019,
USA. E-mail: djohnson@operant-tech.com
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Austin (2001) identified 65 applications of feedback from 43 separate appliedstudies. Despite the prevalence of this intervention, there is little consensus
on how feedback acts to change behavior or what components are necessary
to make it effective. In an article discussing the usage of the term feedback inthe behavioral literature, Peterson (1982) noted that feedback is sometimes
regarded as a discriminative stimulus, is sometimes regarded as a reinforcer,
and sometimes has an unclear usage. Ultimately, the terminological classification of feedback can vary as its function varies, owing to the fact that
feedback does not have an inherent status besides that of stimulus.
Just as problematic as feedback’s definition is the question of which
components are crucial for successful implementation. As literature reviews
have demonstrated, the effects of feedback are variable, and the implementation of feedback is quite different from study to study (Alvero et al.,2001). As noted by D. A. Johnson, Dickinson, and Huitema (2008), most
feedback implementations involve some component of evaluation and objective information about past performance. These different components may
serve different behavioral functions. Evaluative feedback could potentiallyserve as reinforcement for previous desirable performance or punishment
for previous undesirable performance, although the typical delays between
performance and feedback provision are conceptually problematic from amolecular perspective (Malott, 1992). Alternatively, evaluative feedback canserve as an antecedent for rule-governed future performance by implicitly
or explicitly specifying the contingencies related to positive and negative evaluations of performance (Agnew & Redmon, 1992; Haas & Hayes,
2006; R. A. Johnson, Houmanfar, & Smith, 2010). For example, as a resultof receiving evaluative feedback, an employee may generate verbal statements such as “If I keep slacking off, then I will be criticized again” or“If I work as hard as I did last time, then the boss will say nice things
again.” These self-generated verbal descriptions of workplace contingencies
may in turn lead the performer to execute different levels of performance,
which is likely to be followed by self-generated verbal stimuli with reinforcing or punishing properties (such as “Whew, I won’t get yelled at next
week” or “That performance wasn’t good enough and I’m likely to be introuble”).
Evaluative feedback may also serve to establish a performance goal bysuggesting the necessary levels of performance (O’Hora & Maglieri, 2006).
For example, after repeated contact with evaluative feedback, an employee
is likely to derive approximately which criteria are necessary for achieving
positive evaluations or at least avoiding negative evaluations, even if theprovider of the feedback did not explicitly specify the minimal desired performance levels. Under such conditions of rule-governed behavior, the goal
may serve as a motivating operation, discriminative stimulus, or some otherantecedent function, evoking higher levels of performance (Agnew, 1998;
Fellner & Sulzer-Azaroff, 1984; Squires & Wilder, 2010).

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Objective feedback may more clearly specify the goals and contingencies in place and the employee’s performance in relation to those goals andcontingencies. Thus, objective feedback may become more valuable whenanother controlling variable such as evaluative feedback is present (e.g., “I
care about those performance numbers when I know that my boss will havesomething to say about them”). This would suggest that evaluative feedback
is functioning as a motivating operation and objective feedback is functioning as indirect reinforcement to support the more direct verbally mediatedreinforcers, although other functional relations are possible. Authors suchas Daniels and Daniels (2004) have also suggested that for feedback to beeffective it should detail specific information about performance. According
to these authors, objective feedback is essential because it provides theperformer with specific information about the factors that contribute toperformance and provides a clear measure of performance improvement.
In many ways, objective feedback may also inform the employee that the
manager is engaging in actual performance monitoring rather than making
assumptions about performance (Komaki, 1986). The notification that one’s
actual performance is being closely monitored may generate verbal statements that could operate as motivating operations or discriminative stimuli(e.g., “I’m being watched and might get in trouble if I don’t work,” “Someone
actually cares enough to pay attention,” “If I work hard it will actually matternow”) that will evoke higher levels of desired workplace behavior. Again,
evaluative feedback and objective feedback could potentially serve any or
all of these functions and may serve more than one of these functions simultaneously, depending on the individual’s unique learning history and thecurrent organizational contingencies.
Although feedback can involve both evaluative and objective components, it is unknown which of those components are necessary for feedback
to be maximally effective. For example, D. A. Johnson et al. (2008) examined
objective feedback (i.e., specific information about past performance absent
evaluation such as praise or criticism). In that study, participants were randomly assigned using a 2 × 2 factorial design. The experimental conditions
were (a) incentive pay without objective feedback, (b) incentive pay with
objective feedback, (c) fixed pay without objective feedback, and (d) fixed
pay with objective feedback. Participants completed a data entry task inwhich they repetitively entered numbers (dollar amounts corresponding toa digital paycheck) using a computer keyboard. The feedback for the relevant conditions consisted of both the total number of checks completed
correctly and the average number of checks completed correctly per minute,which was continuously updated every 30 s throughout the experimental
session. Monetary incentives did significantly increase the number of correctly entered checks and the amount of time that participants spent working
on the experimental task, although speed and accuracy measures were notimpacted by this variable. The results indicated that objective feedback had

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no discernable effect on any performance measures for the data entry task,either alone or when paired with monetary incentives. These results led theauthors to speculate that “some type of evaluative component may be necessary for feedback to enhance performance” (p. 71). Similar conclusions
were recently reached by Slowiak, Dickinson, and Huitema (2011) when
they extended this line of research to self-solicited feedback.
The existing literature on performance feedback offers several examples that illustrate that evaluation may be an important component. Brown,
Willis, and Reid (1981) compared the effectiveness of objective feedback
alone and objective feedback with praise in reducing off-task behavior andincreasing on-task behaviors of staff at a residential facility. Following a 1-hrtime sample, supervisors provided feedback to staff on an individual basis.
The supervisors were instructed to refrain from providing either approval or
criticism and instead to only present objective descriptions of the observed
work. Although off-task behaviors decreased, feedback alone had little orno effect on increasing on-task behavior. When used along with feedback,statements of approval resulted in lasting decreases in off-task behavior andsignificant increases in on-task behavior.
Crowell, Anderson, Abel, and Sergio (1988) compared the effects ofobjective feedback to social praise combined with objective feedback on
the quality of bank tellers’ interactions with customers. Objective feedback
was delivered in the form of a numerical score, and bank managers were
instructed to deliver that score without evaluative comments. From baseline
the mean quality of teller–customer interactions improved by an average
21.6 points (out of 100) for each teller. When praise was delivered alongwith objective feedback, mean service quality scores increased again by anaverage of 26.6 points for each teller.
Chapanis (1964) tried to isolate the motivational effects of knowledge ofperformance from its informative and rewarding aspects on a data entry task.
Sixteen male college students were separated into four groups. Performance
feedback in the form of a counter that tallied the keystrokes of the participants was given to two of the groups. A third group recorded their own
progress. A fourth group, acting as a control group, received no feedback
at all. Results showed no significant difference in performance among thedifferent interventions.
Taken together, these studies suggest that using objective feedback inisolation is less reliable and less effective than combining objective feedback with some form of evaluation. However, these studies did not compare
evaluation alone against evaluation combined with objective feedback. It isquite plausible that the evaluative component alone influenced performanceand that the objective feedback was an unnecessary component in the studies that examined objective feedback combined with evaluation. Thus, it
is important to determine whether objective information about past performance makes feedback more effective than just a simple general appraisal ofComponent Analysis of Feedback

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past performance. Despite the suggestions that specific and objective feedback may make evaluative judgments more effective and that evaluation isa necessary component for performance feedback to be maximally effective, research on the topic is still lacking. The purpose of the present study
was to compare the effects of objective feedback alone, evaluative feedback
alone, combined evaluative and objective feedback, and no feedback on
productivity for a data entry task.

METHOD
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Participants and Setting
A total of 105 students were recruited through undergraduate courses andrecruitment flyers posted at a midwestern university in the United States.
Sessions were conducted in a small university laboratory containing multiple computer workstations partitioned from one another by cubicle walls
and small private rooms. The cubicle walls prevented both researchers andparticipants from observing one another’s computer screens while working
on the experimental task. With the exception of the feedback interactions,researchers remained completely out of view of the participants during
the sessions, and no more than a single session was completed each day.
Researchers did not provide pay or credit to the participants, although it
may have been possible for participants to receive extra credit for classes
unrelated to the study.

Experimental Task and Alternative Activities
The experimental task was a computerized data entry task that was modeled
after the job of a check processor in a bank. This was the same experimental
task utilized in D. A. Johnson et al. (2008), although feedback was notdelivered via the computer task. The computer presented simulated bankchecks with values ranging from $10.00 to $999.99. These displayed values
were presented so that participants could enter these values using thecomputer’s keyboard. The computer automatically recorded the number ofchecks completed correctly. Participants also had access to six computer
games at any time (FreeCell, Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, Hearts, Minesweeper,and Pinball), and the participants could resume the experimental task at
any time. The alternative off-task activities were available to prevent theparticipants from working at high rates simply because there was nothingelse available to them.

Dependent and Independent Variables
The dependent variable was the number of checks completed correctly. The
independent variables were evaluative feedback (the presence or absence ofDownloaded by [Western Michigan University] at 08:16 31 May 2013

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D. A. Johnson

evaluative statements regarding prior performance) and objective feedback(the presence or absence of objective feedback regarding prior performance). A 2 × 2 factorial design composed of four experimental conditions
was used: (a) combined evaluative and objective feedback (n = 27), (b) evaluative feedback alone (n = 26), (c) objective feedback alone (n = 27), and(d) no feedback of any kind (n = 25). Participants were randomly assigned to
one of the four experimental conditions following the pre-feedback session(described in more detail in the “Experimental Procedures”).
Participant performance was labeled according to one of four values:
excellent, good, average, or poor. Participants were not told about theselabels or the criteria for these labels. Participant performance in which 990 or
more checks were correctly processed during the previous 45-min session
was labeled excellent. Participant performance in which 770–989 checks
were processed correctly during the previous session was labeled good.
Participant performance in which 330–769 checks were processed correctly
during the previous session was labeled average. Participant performance inwhich fewer than 329 checks were processed correctly during the previous
session was labeled poor. These values were determined using the standard
deviation and average performance of individuals who did not receive incentives or feedback in a previous study using the same experimental task (D. A.
Johnson et al., 2008). These labels were relevant for the following evaluation
conditions.

COMBINED EVALUATIVE AND OBJECTIVE FEEDBACK CONDITIONAt the beginning of every experimental session, participants were brought
into a small private room. Participants were read one of 40 evaluative statements about their previous session’s performance, including objective details
on performance. A variety of sentences were used to decrease the possibility that participants would perceive the statements as rote and insincere.
In addition, research assistants were trained to not read directly from thescripts in order to make statements appear more authentic to the participants, although scripts were kept in view of the research assistants to permit
a quick glance in order to ensure treatment integrity. Participants were neverallowed to view the scripts associated with these evaluations. Research assistants received extensive training prior to data collection to ensure that theirdelivery of the scripts was accurate and fluent, and such training did not conclude until these objectives were met. The specific sentence that was read toparticipants depended in part on whether their previous performance wascategorized as excellent, good, average, or poor (10 random sentences foreach category). Examples of such sentences included “During the previous
session, you correctly completed _____ checks. That’s a really impressive
number of checks!” (excellent condition, with extra emphasis placed on theDownloaded by [Western Michigan University] at 08:16 31 May 2013

Component Analysis of Feedback

95

delivery of the word in italics), “During your previous session, you correctly completed _____ checks. That’s one of the better performances we’veseen recently” (good condition), “During you previous session, you correctly
completed _____ checks. That’s about what the average person does” (average condition), and “During your previous session, you correctly completed_____ checks. Unfortunately, that’s considered a low number of checks”(poor condition). The blanks were filled with the participant’s actual performance from the previous session. Within each evaluative category, theparticular evaluative comment to be used was randomly selected. After the
feedback had been delivered, the research assistants confirmed the participants’ upcoming schedule of sessions and then took the participants to theroom with the computer workstations in order to begin the experimental
task.
Common features within the excellent condition included phrases indicating strong praise and extra emphasis in the vocal delivery of the evaluative
terms (e.g., “really impressive,” “wow,” “easily one of the best performers”).
Common features within the good condition included phrases indicatingpraise (e.g., “impressive,” “high ranking,” “one of the better performers”).
Common features within the average condition included phrases indicating performance within a normal range (e.g., “normal number of checks,”“pretty typical performer,” “standard level of performance”). Common features within the poor condition included phrases indicating mild criticism(e.g., “under the standard,” “performance has been somewhat low,” “below
what the average person does”).
EVALUATIVE FEEDBACK ALONE CONDITION
This condition was similar to the combined evaluative and objective feedback condition discussed previously except that no objective details about
performance were given. In other words, the sentence “During your previous session, you correctly completed _____ checks” was omitted from thefeedback statements, and evaluative comments that were similar in nature
were used. Otherwise, this condition resembled the previous condition in allother respects.
OBJECTIVE FEEDBACK ALONE CONDITION
This condition was similar to the combined evaluative and objective feedback
condition discussed previously except that no evaluative comments about
performance were given. Participants were read the following sentence in aneutral tone: “During your previous session, you correctly completed _____
checks.” Research assistants provided no evaluation of performance, taking
care not to convene any subtle body language that might be interpreted
as approving or critical (i.e., smiling, frowning, nodding of the head, etc.).

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Neutral delivery of the objective feedback was included as part of the training procedures mentioned earlier. Otherwise, this condition resembled theprevious conditions in all other respects.

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NO FEEDBACK CONDITIONAt the beginning of every experimental session, participants in this condition were brought into a small private room. These participants wereasked to confirm their upcoming schedule of sessions before being taken
to the room with the computer workstations, as was the case with theother experimental conditions. The purpose of this procedure was to confirm their subsequent appointment without disturbing any other working
participants and to increase the similarity of experimental procedures acrossconditions. No further instructions or information about their performance
were provided.

Experimental Procedures
Participants attended an introductory session followed by a pre-feedback
session and then three experimental sessions. After informed consent was
obtained during the introductory session, the research assistant demonstrated
the experimental task to the participant, demonstrated the alternative activities (i.e., computer games), explained that the purpose of all sessions was tocorrectly complete as many checks as possible, and concluded the introductory session. The pre-feedback session immediately followed the conclusionof the introductory session.
At the beginning of the pre-feedback session, the research assistantseated the participant at one of the desktop computers. The purpose of
the pre-feedback session was to obtain data for the covariate and to gather
performance data to be used in the subsequent session’s feedback. The
following instructions were given to participants at the beginning of thesession:If you have a cell phone, please silence it during the session. You may
take a break whenever you like for as long as you like. You may play
one of the computer games as a break, or you may also just stretch andrelax. After I start the check task, I will be available on the other side of
the cubicle wall. If you need anything during the session, just come getme. Do you have any questions?

The research assistant started the experimental task, started a timer set for
45 min, and left the view of the participant. When the timer indicated thatthe session was concluded, the research assistant thanked the participant for
attending and dismissed him or her from that day’s session.

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Component Analysis of Feedback

The three experimental sessions involved the same activities and duration as the pre-feedback session, except that the research assistant took theparticipant to a small private room at the beginning of the experimental
session. Once there, the research assistant implemented the procedures as
described in “Dependent and Independent Variables” and then returned theparticipant to the experimental task.

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RESULTS
Table 1 displays the means for the pre-feedback sessions and the average performance during the three experimental sessions for the numberof checks completed correctly. The results demonstrated a decline in performance for the no feedback condition. The results also demonstrated
performance gains of similar size for the evaluative feedback alone condition
and the objective feedback alone condition (gains of an average of 85 and88 checks completed correctly, respectively). A stronger gain in performance
was seen in the combined evaluative and objective feedback condition,
showing an average improvement of 175 checks completed correctly.
The average number of checks completed correctly during the threeexperimental sessions was analyzed using a two-factor analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The number of checks completed correctly during thepre-feedback session served as the covariate. The results of this analysis weresignificant at the p = .05 level. Table 2 displays the adjusted means basedon this ANCOVA, and Table 3 displays the source table for the ANCOVA.
When the adjusted mean for the no feedback condition was used as a pointof comparison, the addition of evaluative feedback alone resulted in a 17%
increase in performance, as did the addition of objective feedback alone.
The addition of both evaluative and objective feedback combined resulted
in a 30% improvement in performance. Tukey pairwise comparisons were
calculated, and the results indicated that performance under the combined
evaluative and objective feedback condition was significantly higher thanthat under all other conditions at the p = .05 level. The evaluative feedback
alone condition and the objective feedback alone condition both resulted in
TABLE 1 Raw Means for Checks Completed Correctly: Pre-feedback and Experimental
Sessions
ConditionnPre-feedback

Experimental

No feedback
Evaluative feedback alone
Objective feedback alone
Combined evaluative and objective feedback

25
26
27
27

670
657
662
718

647
742
750
893

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D. A. Johnson

TABLE 2 Adjusted Means for Correctly Completed Checks
Condition

Evaluative feedback

No evaluative feedback

Overall

849.8
762.8
806.3

765.7
654.0
709.9

807.7
708.4

Objective feedback
No objective feedback
Overall

Source

df

SS

MS

F

p

Evaluative feedback (A)Objective feedback (B)
A×B
Baseline
Error
Total

1
1
1
1
100
104

243,655
257,639
4,065
4,275,285
1,241,588

243,655
257,639
4,065
4,275,285
12,416

19.62
20.75
0.33
344.34

.000
.000
.572
.000

statistically significant higher performance than the no feedback condition.
No other statistically significant comparisons were discovered. Effect size
calculations indicated Cohen’s ds of 0.78 for the evaluative feedback alone
condition, 1.00 for the objective feedback alone condition, and 1.76 for the
combined evaluative and objective feedback condition.
Figure 1 displays the average number of checks completed correctly
over time. As Figure 1 illustrates, all four conditions showed slight increases
in performance across the first, second, and third experimental sessions.
A test for parallelism was conducted and was not found to be significant
950
900
Mean Performance

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TABLE 3 Source Table for Analysis of Covariance

850

Objective alone

800

Evaluative alone

750

Combined Evaluative &Objective

700

No feedback

650
600

1st

2nd
Experimental Sessions

3rd

FIGURE 1 Average number of checks completed correctly over time.

Component Analysis of Feedback

99(p = .45), confirming that the slopes were parallel and that there were no
noteworthy differences in direction across experimental conditions. Thus,
the source of differences between the four experimental conditions can be
attributed to solely to changes in the levels of performance.

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DISCUSSION
The present study was designed to do a component analysis of feedback anddiscover whether evaluative and objective feedback elements are necessary.
The study demonstrates a benefit of having both evaluative and objective
feedback, both in isolation and combined. The study also illustrates a valuable application for organizational settings. An intervention that required lessthan 1 min of a supervisor’s time (per worker) produced a 17%–30% average
improvement in performance. Of course, time investments for collecting andproviding feedback in actual organizations may vary quite a bit from thisanalog experiment, but the basic point remains: For a relatively small investment of time, a large and immediate gain in performance was seen. It is also
possible that the instructions given to the participants may have resulted in
the impact of this intervention being understated. Although participants weretold to complete as many checks as possible, they were also told that they
could take a break or relax whenever they wanted. This contradiction in the
instructions may have suppressed maximum responding across conditions.
In real-world settings a suggestion to take breaks or relax is likely to beabsent, given that many employers would prefer their employees to work as
much as possible. This underscores the potential influence of performance
feedback in organizational settings. It also suggests that supervisors shouldtake the effort to provide both objective feedback and precise evaluation, as
this combination produced stronger gains than just general evaluation alone
or objective feedback alone. Although many supervisors may be reluctant toinitially implement such feedback because of time constraints, the results ofthis study suggest that the benefits of their efforts may be enough to justify
the cost in time and energy.
This study does conflict with some of the findings of previous studies. For example, D. A. Johnson et al. (2008) demonstrated no benefit tousing objective feedback alone, whereas the current study demonstrates aclear benefit to objective feedback. One reason for this discrepancy may
have to do with the method of delivering the objective feedback. In D. A.
Johnson et al. the objective feedback was delivered by a computer, with performance data presented on the screen. In the current study, the objective
feedback was delivered by a person. Although care was taken to preventthe delivery of any signs of approval or criticism during the objective feedback alone condition, participants may have believed that evaluation was
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positions, would take time to deliver objective feedback without a form ofevaluation. The effects of such a historical correlation between in-persondelivery of performance data and evaluation of that performance may notextend to computer-delivered performance data. Further studies should
examine whether in-person delivery of objective feedback is more effective than computer delivery of objective feedback. Future studies may also
wish to examine the dependent measures in more detail, accounting for how
variables such as time on task, rate of responding, and accuracy are influenced on a moment-by-moment basis throughout the experimental session,
not just the overall average impact on performance.
Another area for future research is to address the influence of normative standards. In the present study, many participants were given evaluative
statements that suggested that their performance was in the average range.
It is possible that this may have created a suppressive effect on further performance improvements. Previous research has suggested that many individuals
will work hard to keep their performance consistent with the standards set by
the local social community (Asch, 1951; Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius,
2008). For example, in the classic Asch studies of conformity, a lesser
known experimental variation was conducted that involved a single research
confederate who consistently disagreed with the judgments of a group of
16 experimentally naïve participants. During the experiment, the participants
began openly mocking the confederate who was alone in his individuality.
It is plausible the many employees also have a similar history of receiving
punishment for performing outside the normal range, both below the average performance (e.g., criticized by supervisors for poor performance) orabove the average performance (e.g., criticized by peers for making themlook bad). It is possible that evaluative statements could have produced
even greater increases in performance if care had been taken to avoid suggesting that performance was normative. Future research could address thispossibility within the context of social comparison and goal setting.
Care should also be taken in future studies to ensure that evaluative statements are interpreted by recipients as excellent, good, average, orpoor in content. Although the statements in the present study were carefully selected and assumed to reflect such categories, future research should
corroborate these assumptions with participant self-reports. Furthermore,
future studies could also investigate the differential impact of these various categories of evaluation on performance. Because of the variability inthe sequencing of evaluative statements in the design of the present study,
such an analysis could not be implemented with the current data set (e.g.,some participants received good feedback first, then average feedback, andfinally excellent feedback; others received a good/good/ excellent feedback
sequence; others an average/poor/good feedback sequence). An analysisof only the first instance of feedback (avoiding sequencing considerations)
was also precluded by the fact that only half of the participants received

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evaluative feedback, and the majority of those participants fell within the
average range of performance evaluation during their first session. However,
future studies could be designed to explicitly assess the different evaluation categories by exposing participants to a particular type or sequence of
feedback in a more controlled fashion.
The accuracy of evaluative feedback is another variable for future investigation. In the present study, evaluative feedback was accurately delivered toperformers. In many real-world contexts, the evaluative judgments of supervisors may be less than accurate, particularly if supervisors attempt to deliver
performance feedback in the absence of actual performance monitoring.
This may occur if a supervisor hears about the benefits of performance feedback but does not wish to invest the time or effort to ensure that feedback
delivery is truly contingent. The effect of such inaccurate evaluations on performance could be studied experimentally. For example, investigators could
examine whether praise or criticism still has an influence on performance if
paired with a history of inaccuracy. Furthermore, this research could examine whether the effect would be the same on high and low performers.
Alternatively, a future study could investigate whether a distorted normative
statement (e.g., saying that the average performance was higher than it trulywas) would increase performance to match the believed range of normal performance and whether this increase would be more than the corresponding
increase for an accurate normative statement.
Although it has frequently been demonstrated that performance feedback can enhance employee behavior, component analyses of feedback are
rare. Given the commonality of this intervention approach, it is importantthat researchers continue to investigate different methods and techniques
for refining this performance tool. Furthermore, future studies should not
only attempt to identify the necessary components for effective feedback
but investigate the behavioral function of such feedback. Although no particular functional status is inherent to performance feedback, it is likely thatthe most common behavioral functions in applied settings could be isolated.
It is hoped that the present study contributes to a better understanding of
feedback and that further studies will continue such investigations.

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