All Ireland Society for Higher Education
| Name: | Sylvia Huntley-Moore |
|---|---|
| Email: | shuntley@tcd.ie |
| Institution: | Trinity College Dublin |
John Panter, john_panter@keypoint.com.au
The E U A Review of Irish Universities was surprised to find "that students have almost no formal input into monitoring or evaluating the quality of teaching and learning in Irish universities. In many cases, no regular formal feedback on courses and modules is obtained from students at all. In cases where such feedback is obtained, often at the initiative of the lecturer, there did not appear to be any systematic way to monitor the use made of this feedback." (2005: 22). In the Australian, American and British higher education systems, mandatory student feedback in the form of student surveys are commonplace and are seen as an essential element of quality assurance and quality improvement measures. In addition, they are increasingly being used as a basis for personnel and other administrative decisions.
There is overwhelming evidence that, given certain conditions such as specially trained staff to collect and process data, feedback collected for a range of courses over a period of time and for every member of staff with a comprehensive and systematic follow-up programme in place, such use of student surveys is entirely justified (Ramsden,1992). Nevertheless, these conditions are not always met, the result being that the surveys are not as useful as they might be.
This paper takes a case study approach to describe the student survey system developed and implemented at one Australian university and the associated policies and procedures which benefited to individual academics, departments and faculties and led to improvements in student learning. The transferability of key learning points from the case study to the Irish higher education system is considered with particular reference to the findings of a descriptive study focusing on the follow-up and developmental supports available to staff in Irish universities and Institutes of Technology who commission student surveys of teaching.