Preface
Student feedback has been a contested area of higher education quality for over a decade. Initially, it was utilised primarily as a teaching performance management tool, which many lecturers have perceived as highly controversial. Gradually, feedback instruments started being recognised as tools which may enhance teaching and learning, rather than just a monitoring tool for underperforming or otherwise unpopular lecturers.
This book aims to highlight the developments and emerging trends in the student feedback domain. The book consists of nine chapters, highlighting not only the expansion in the use of student feedback in higher education, but also specific issues relating to university leadership in this area, facets of feedback administration and the use of the results in institutions worldwide. There is a common theme running through a majority of the chapters and that is the recognition of the need to act on student feedback and thus improve teaching and learning in universities.
In this publication, we draw upon international perspectives on the importance and use of student feedback in the higher education setting. The book not only looks at the current literature on student feedback but it also focuses on experiences of the individual authors, some of whom have covered international perspectives and trends as well as their individual national circumstances. In addition to being experts in their particular disciplines, many of the contributors are also researchers and practitioners in the area of student feedback.
In brief, the parts and chapters are:
Part 1: Overview
Chapter 1: The nexus of feedback and improvement
Lee Harvey of the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) discusses the landscape of factors impacting on student feedback in higher education. The chapter situates student feedback in the current higher education context internationally and provides an overview of the debates surrounding the topic. In particular, it underlines the fact that student surveys and feedback have little effect without being incorporated in a strategy involving acting on student feedback and also informing students of the actions taken to motivate them to participate in feedback provision in the future.
Part 2: International perspectives
Chapter 2: Student feedback in the US and global contexts
Fernando Padró of Cambridge College, USA, provides a glimpse of the controversies, dilemmas and issues of using student feedback from the perspective of performance management of units and staff in the USA. The chapter points to the abundance of surveys currently utilised for various aspects of higher education, while underlining the significance of incorporating student feedback into systematic institutional decision-making. The chapter further argues that the challenges may be found in the purposes for which student feedback surveys are utilised. Fernando highlights the potential for the clash of cultures between external stakeholders (who tend to perceive tertiary education as a service) and academics (who tend to view tertiary education as a transformative and developmental process).
Chapter 3: Student feedback in higher education: a Malaysian perspective
Marlia Puteh and Hadina Habil from the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia situate student feedback in the Malaysian higher education context, in which the government has institutionalised collecting student feedback with the aim of enhancing tertiary teaching and learning. The chapter indicates that the practice of collecting student feedback is relatively new in the Malaysian higher education context, and has faced a significant amount of resistance from academics, and institutions have also faced a number of technical issues related to establishing effective evaluation systems. The chapter documents these issues within the context of one higher education institution.
Chapter 4: Improving university teaching through student feedback: a critical investigation
Torgny Roxå and Katarina Mårtensson of Lund University, Sweden, describe the way in which student evaluations are handled in the Swedish higher education context. The chapter provides a case study of one university in Sweden, which illustrates the need for an effective evaluation system that encompasses good data collection and the use of the data resulting from the feedback. The chapter supports the argument made in a number of other chapters in this book that student feedback surveys may be perceived as burdensome to administer and also to provide, unless they are acted upon collaboratively and communicated among university leadership, programme leaders, lecturers and students.
Chapter 5: The practice and use of student feedback in the Australian national and university context
Denise Chalmers from the University of Western Australia provides an Australian perspective on the use of student feedback in quality assurance at the local and national levels. This chapter also touches upon the changes taking place at universities with respect to the use of such feedback as a quality performance measure. In addition, she highlights the integration of such data from ‘internal university feedback surveys with the national surveys to provide a more detailed and multilayered profile of their students’ experiences’.
Part 3: Tools and administration
Chapter 6: Tools for effective student feedback
Hamish Coates from the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) reviews a range of instruments utilised for collecting student feedback for quality assurance and enhancement purposes. His chapter investigates the relationship between internal and external quality management and uncovers a number of discontinuities. The chapter concludes with some prospects for taking more concerted approaches to quality management in tertiary institutions.
Chapter 7: Web-based or paper-based surveys: a quandary?
Lorraine Bennett from Monash University and Chenicheri Sid Nair from the University of Western Australia investigate the types of platforms universities use for administering surveys. In particular, the authors examine the benefits and drawbacks in utilising paper-based versus online surveys in relation to student response rates. The discussion in this chapter is based on the experiences in a large research-intensive university.
Chapter 8: Inclusive practice in student feedback systems
Chenicheri Sid Nair from the University of Western Australia, Phillip Adams from Monash University and Patricie Mertova from the University of Oxford initiate a discussion concerning inclusive practice in student feedback systems. In particular, the chapter discusses the need to recognise the disadvantage of some students and to have systems that include all participants in an institution. The authors further reinforce the significance of communication with students when seeking feedback from them: before, during and after the surveying process.
Chapter 9: Action and the feedback cycle
James Williams from Birmingham City University, United Kingdom, explores the action cycle in the feedback process. In particular, this chapter draws upon cases at a number of universities that use the Student Satisfaction Approach in their feedback mechanism. The chapter reiterates a pivotal point: that there is a need not only to take action on what is revealed from the feedback but to communicate effectively back to the students the actions that have resulted. The author highlights the current tensions between the intentions of many UK institutions of listening to the student voice and acting on it and the government’s pressures for competition based on league tables.
In summary, this book suggests that student surveys utilised for quality enhancement and quality assurance purposes are here to stay. The prevailing themes running through many of these chapters are the ever-present tensions and disconnects between the use of student feedback for assurance versus enhancement purposes in a majority of higher education systems covered in this book. Other recurring themes of the book include the need for action on student feedback, communication of actions to students as well as a need for an ongoing debate with students. Although these arguments were given from a range of national platforms, they were directed towards the more international and global nature of utilising student feedback in higher education.