Gathering student feedback: how does it make a difference?
Abstract
Student engagement in quality systems, in particular feedback from students on their experiences, forms a central part of quality systems throughout Europe. Yet, in order for feedback to make a difference it needs to be collected with the right purpose in mind and appropriate use of the findings needs to be made in order to inform decision-making. This paper discusses the purpose and use of student feedback by UK Higher Education institutions.
Two surveys were conducted: one external survey of UK institutions and one internal survey in the University of Edinburgh. The purpose of the study was to understand the range of feedback methods used, perceptions of effort versus value, the intended purpose of feedback surveys, survey content and approaches to analysis and distribution of findings. A key goal of the study was to benchmark Edinburgh’s own approach for gathering feedback from students with the sector and to make recommendations.
This paper was presented at EQAF and reflects the views of the named authors only.
