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An essential goal of evaluation is to foster learning. Across the medical education spectrum, evaluation of clinical performance is dominated by subjective feedback to learners based on observation by expert supervisors. Research in non-medical settings has suggested that participants’ perceptions of evaluation processes exert considerable influence over whether the feedback they receive actually facilitates learning, but similar research on perceptions of feedback in the medical setting has been limited. In this review, we examine the literature on recipient perceptions of feedback and how those perceptions influence the contribution that feedback makes to their learning. A focused exploration of relevant work on this subject in higher education and industrial psychology settings is followed by a detailed examination of available research on perceptions of evaluation processes in medical settings …