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Unit 20 : Methods of Feedback for Students

group of students taking the module. Maybe that is not important, as long as there are sufficient Notes
opportunities for informal exchange between students and teachers to render the use of formal
mechanisms redundant. But this may not always be the case. A mid-point feedback questionnaire
might be useful on large enrolment programmes but, if this is followed by an end of module
questionnaire, it may be seen as overkill by students and staff alike, especially if the module is
semester length.
A further point about timing of feedback concerns its links to action and change. At higher levels
within institutions, ensuring that feedback is available to meet the timetable of committees may
be essential if it is going to affect decision-making and action. Thus, it may be necessary to work
back from the committee timetable to determine when feedback should be obtained.
20.3.6 Standardisation
A further discussion point is whether the purposes require feedback arrangements to be
standardised. As indicated above, for some purposes this will undoubtedly be helpful. For other
purposes, not only will standardised arrangements be unhelpful but a bespoke, one-off exercise
might be called for. Thus, if the effects of a particular programme innovation are to be assessed,
specific feedback on that innovation will need to be obtained. It is by no means clear that
standardised arrangements would achieve the purpose. Or to take another example, the purposes
of collecting feedback from students on an entirely new degree programme may differ from the
purposes of collecting it on an established, long-running degree.
20.3.7 Clarity of purpose
The main point we would emphasise, however, is that the purposes of student feedback should
be clear to all involved -especially students - if their commitment to the process is to be maximised.
We found a number of examples where purpose was stated explicitly - especially in the use of
questionnaires. It is also important to state how feedback will be used and how results/actions
will be disseminated to students. Such information is often stated in guidelines to staff and
students. However, we believe it is especially important to state purpose and use, and how
results and actions will be reported at the point when feedback is being requested.

Why should standardisation is important in feadback mechanism.

Discussion about the purposes of student feedback inevitably leads on to discussion about the
various mechanisms that can be used. For example, the existence of a well-publicised complaints
procedure or a discussion during class may provide more effective ways of checking that a
module or programme is going well than obtaining feedback through a questionnaire. The role
of different kinds of feedback mechanisms is the subject of the next section.
This section considers the types of mechanisms that exist for collecting student feedback and
those which are most commonly used by institutions. Each has implications for collecting students’
views, analysing and interpreting the results, and feeding back the results and actions taken to
students. Thus, we have also included at the end of this section a basic summary of the advantages
and disadvantages of the different mechanisms.

20.4 Types of Methods of Feedback for Students

Institutions use many mechanisms to collect student feedback, both qualitative and quantitative.
They include :

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