To foster feedback engagement, an essential task for educators is supporting learners in receiving, making sense of, and using feedback information. Giving feedback information (by peers, colleagues, and faculty), should facilitate that same understanding and actionability. Dialogue – the ongoing exchange of ideas and information – can be a vehicle for this process, especially in practice settings, where the roles of giver and user of feedback information can swiftly and dynamically alternate. The Westerveld framework contains feedback dialogue principles for both the user-, and giver side of this dynamic process represented by seven central criteria.

Download the pdf of the Westerveld framework for interprofessional feedback dialogues in health professions education or Westerveld Framework in Dutch

The Westerveld framework can be used for: instruction, reflection, guided feedback-on-feedback and for self-, peer- and teacher-assessments of feedback dialogue. It can also be developed and specified to use in specific contexts by adding context-specific additions, like the framework currently does for interprofessional healthcare.

The interprofessional additions specify how additional barriers to feedback dialogues, presented by the interprofessional healthcare context, can be considered, and overcome. It can be used to teach feedback dialogue specifically to learners in health care professions.

Comenius project

The framework is a result of a Comenius Senior Fellow grant by the NRO Interprofessional feedback in health professions education, initiated by Tineke Westerveld †, the UMCU (University Medical Centre Utrecht) and HU (Utrecht University of Applied Sciences), to develop interprofessional education for medical and nursing students with a central role for feedback processes. The Westerveld framework was created in the context of this educational development and is currently being used in its execution.

Further Reading

• The projectitem Interprofessional feedback in health professions education
• The publication The Westerveld framework for interprofessional feedback dialogues in health professions education(2021) in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education.
• Publicatie in de SURF community: De SuperFeed-aanpak van UMC Utrecht: Hoe docenten en studenten beter feedback leren vragen en begrijpendoor Anneke de Maat.