Definition
In communication, feedback is the response a listener gives back to a speaker — through words, expressions, questions, or actions — that shows how the message was received and understood. In instruction, the instructor uses feedback to confirm whether the student has grasped the material and to adjust the message if it has not landed correctly.
Plain English
Feedback is the signal that comes back from the person you are talking to, telling you whether your message got through. A puzzled look, a question, a correct answer, or a wrong action all count as feedback.
Context Anchor
Seen in instructor-student communication, crew communication, and any cockpit or training situation where one person needs to know that a message was understood.
Derivation
From 'feed' + 'back' — literally information being fed back to the source. Originally an engineering term for output looped back into a system to control it. The same idea applies in conversation: what comes back tells the sender whether to keep going, adjust, or try again.
Why Pilots Care
Clear feedback prevents misunderstandings during training briefings and cockpit instruction, reducing the chance of errors in flight.
Intuition Check
Feedback does not only mean criticism or advice after the fact. In communication, it means any response that shows whether the message got through and made sense.
Example Sentence 1
The instructor watched the student's hands on the controls during the steep turn — that hesitation was feedback that the entry briefing hadn't fully landed.
Example Sentence 2
After the preflight briefing, the instructor paused to ask for feedback so he could confirm the student understood the key points.