1. What does student feedback entail?
The Student Feedback on Teaching and Courses project is in line with the principles of a developmental approach to quality enhancement. Eliciting student perceptions of teaching and learning is also a unique opportunity to celebrate best practice. Fundani offer support to academics throughout the feedback process. This includes support for the design and administration of student feedback questionnaires. Fundani also analyses the data and provide a confidential written report.
2. Who are the role players at CPUT?
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- Students
- Academics
- Facilitators
- Teaching Assistants
- Teaching and Learning Co-ordinators
- Unit and Language Co-ordinators
- Faculty Management (Deans, HoDs, HoPs & HoSs)
- Fundani representatives
- Centre for Innovative Educational Technology (CIET) personnel (Antoinette van Deventer & Mavela Mvuyisi
- DVC: Academic
3. What is the procedure to elicit student feedback?
3.1 Pre-evaluation
Firstly, you should identify the reason for obtaining feedback as this will determine what type of question you will pose. You might want to determine collectively, or separately, student overall satisfaction of their subject or course, how much they have learned, what their experiences are or the perceived educational worth of their subject or course.You should also bear in mind the scope and scale of the project. In terms of scope, if you want to find out how students perceive their general teaching and learning experiences, then the questionnaire should focus on key aspects of teaching practice such as planning and organisation, learning outcomes, teaching strategies, resources, class interactions, assessment, and so forth. In terms of scale, a maximum of 25-30 questions is recommended. If the questionnaire is too long students might find it too tedious to complete.We provide lecturers with a bank of questions which can be used to customise discipline-specific questionnaires. This includes ranked statements and open-ended questions. Questionnaires can be administered in a paper-based or online format using Google Forms or Respondus in Blackboard. Consultations with Fundani staff and T&L Co-ordinators can be used to reflect upon the discipline-specific requirements of the subject or programme. This will enable lecturers to customise relevant questions to portray the essence of their subject or programme.
3.2 The evaluation process
Once questionnaires are finalised lecturers may send the questionnaire link to students via Blackboard or Google Forms. If a paper-based approach is followed, Fundani recommend that an independent person administers the questionnaire to eliminate potential bias. This may be a colleague, Teaching Assistant or the Student Feedback Coordinator.
3.3 Post-evaluation
Fundani use a thematic approach to analyse the data. This is followed by a confidential written report summarising student perceptions. The report will highlight best practice and/or recommend the need for intervention such as workshops, seminars, training and so forth. It is recommended that lecturers triangulate student feedback data with other sources of data such as peer review, internal and external moderation reports, analysis of examination results and their own reflections.
3.4 “Closing the loop”
Boud and Molloy (2013:8) propose a debrief session during which the feedback is discussed with students. If required, actions and changes to be implemented are made in consultation with students. Such an inclusive approach signals to students the value of their feedback and allows them to experience the direct benefits of student feedback. Thus, students become active collaborators in the learning process.