DVSA Part 3, Standards Check, Part 2 Driving Tests with Graham Hooper, ORDIT trainer, Coach & Mentor

Feedback is a powerful tool. It’s about being observant of what your client is doing, and how you communicate that back to them. This article is about giving positive feedback. Look out for another article on drawing feedback out of the client.

Instructors often get caught out, unsure of what to say or how to say it. This leads either to long silences or to ineffective “coaching babble” (“Good! Good! Well done! Great!”). You may feel this is motivational, but this kind of feedback makes clients switch off to the instructor’s words.

Another common habit is to jump in with feedback only when clients are doing things wrong, so the training becomes fault-focused.

By understanding the different styles and purposes of feedback, you can prepare better and have a healthier framework for knowing what to say. Two key principles will improve your feedback:

1. Feedback must always have a purpose.
2. Positive feedback works positively.

1. Feedback must have a purpose

The reason you give feedback is to improve and develop your client. When you know why you’re giving it, it becomes far more effective. There are two main reasons an instructor gives feedback: to motivate, or to help the client develop their skills.

Motivational feedback helps your client focus and maintain good effort and attitude during the lesson. For example, a client may need reminding to concentrate so their newfound skills stay embedded. Clients often switch off once they think a skill has become automatic.

Instructional feedback helps a client change their current behaviour, for example correcting them when they aren’t using a routine effectively. It keeps things on track.

You’re looking to create smooth repetition that transfers from task to task. Learning anything new is rarely easy. The skill is to know why you are giving feedback, so you can place it in the right place, at the best time, for the greatest effect.

2. Positive feedback works positively

It’s a common belief that driver training revolves around telling people what they do wrong. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Fault detection and correction is only a small part of the feedback process. If it’s your main form of feedback, you are letting your clients down.

Driving instruction is an interactive communication process that relies on trust and rapport. Telling people what they’re doing wrong rarely wins rapport, even when the advice is technically correct. You see this on plenty of driving instructor Facebook groups.

How you say something is every bit as important as what you say. That’s true in any relationship. Instructors need to become success seekers rather than fault finders. Positive feedback builds a better long-term psychology; negative feedback often builds a fear of failure. That can lead to mistakes on test, with the instructor blaming nerves.

How well do your clients perform with the words “Don’t cut the corner!” running through their minds? Positive feedback builds a goal-focused mentality instead. Helping clients picture the outcome they want reduces worry, stress and anxiety on test, and going for a goal creates confidence.

What positive feedback is not

If positive feedback is so powerful, why don’t more instructors embrace it? Because it is widely misunderstood. Positive feedback does not mean calling poor performance good.

Telling a client “that was good” when they’ve emerged from a junction without observing effectively, even though it was safe, doesn’t help. It reinforces poor performance, and clients start to expect praise no matter how they drive. Positive feedback is a communication tool for changing specific behaviours: it reflects the performance back to the client.

Praise and encourage

Whatever the performance, good or bad, remember two words: praise and encourage.

Praise when your client performs correctly. Constantly try to catch them doing things right. Reinforcing good performance means they’ll repeat it and build confidence.

Encourage when they perform incorrectly. Simply telling them they keep making faults is no use if they don’t know what the right thing looks like. Always link the correction to the result they can expect, for example: “Your preparation was fine; you’ll need to reduce your speed to give yourself more time for the gear change.”

Good performance gets highlighted, making it easier to remember and repeat. Poor performance is corrected without the emotional impact of negative feedback. Most importantly, clients learn to become problem solvers, rather than learning that they don’t have to think because the instructor has all the answers.

Purposeful, positive feedback helps clients enjoy driving and their lessons, and improves their experience of learning. It will also make you the instructor who grows their business and increases client satisfaction.