Journal article
Improving visual estimation through active feedback
BC Wintle, F Fidler, PA Vesk, JL Moore
Methods in Ecology and Evolution | Published : 2013
Abstract
In field surveys, ecological researchers and practitioners routinely make quantitative judgements that are known to vary in quality. Feedback about judgement accuracy is crucial for improving estimation performance yet is not usually afforded to fieldworkers. One reason it is rare lies in the difficulty of obtaining 'true values' (e.g. percentage cover) to learn from. Often, the only information we can access is other people's estimates of the same thing. Group average estimates tend to be remarkably accurate. By extension, receiving feedback about group averages may improve the estimation performance of individuals, dispensing with the need for 'true values' to learn from. In experiment 1, ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Australian Research Council and the Australian Centre of Excellence in Risk Analysis (B. W. and F. F.), the Applied Environmental Decision Analysis group (J.M.) and the Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (P. V.). We gratefully acknowledge Australian Conservation Volunteers, Parks Victoria, assisting facilitators, Victoria Hemming, Kate Giljohann, Chris Jones, Marissa McBride and Prof. Mark Burgman for their support. Suggestions from three anonymous reviewers greatly improved the manuscript. This research was approved by the Human Ethics Committee of The University of Melbourne (Application No. 0709557).