Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Abel Nyamapfene
8. There were sufficient useful study resources and/or course notes
9. The staff teaching the module were supportive and helpful
10. The assessments were a fair way of testing what was learnt on the module.
11. Feedback on coursework was of sufficient quantity and quality
12. Feedback on coursework was received on time
Table 1: Student responses to the 12 Likert questionnaire items
Question StdDev Mean Definitely
Disagree
Mostly
Disagree
N/R Mostly
Agree
Definitely
Agree
1 0.97 3.75 0 1 2 3 2
2 0.93 3.13 0 3 1 4 0
3 0.99 3.38 0 2 2 3 1
4 1.50 3.50 2 0 0 4 2
5 0.43 4.25 0 0 0 6 2
6 0.99 3.63 0 1 3 2 2
7 0.97 3.75 0 1 2 3 2
8 1.11 3.63 1 0 1 5 1
9 0.66 4.25 0 0 1 4 3
10 1.17 3.88 1 0 0 5 2
11 0.97 3.75 0 1 2 3 2
12 0.50 4.50 0 0 0 4 4
Five students felt that the course was interesting and intellectually stimulating (Response to Question
1). However, whilst 4 students mostly agreed that the amount of material was suitable, 3 students
disagreed (Response to Question 2). With regard to the level of difficulty of the course, 2 students felt
that the course was difficult, 2 were non-committal, whilst 4 felt that the course was at the right level of
difficulty. Positive written responses to the course included:
Enjoyed the module lots of interesting topics covered
Best course i have taken at this university. Abel is a credit to what Exeter can offer, a
really great lecturer
Fun coursework, enthusiastic teaching.
A corresponding negative written response is:
Lots of different topics covered so hard to recall it all in the exam
From this analysis, we can conclude that most students generally found the course to be interesting.
The negative responses may indicate that there were some students whose main focus were passing
the examinations and were not overly interested in the course content. Since TMA1 and the project
were spread out through the semester, this would suggest that students were stimulated by the
directed self-learning on computer and networking security. The analysis also indicates that whilst
some students felt that the course was rather difficult, the majority were comfortable with the degree
of challenge in the course.
Turning to the organisation of the module, 2 students definitely disagreed with the assertion that the
course was well structured and had clear objectives (Response to Question 4). In addition, one
student felt that the resources available for the course were insufficient (Response to Question 8). A
corresponding negative comment was as follows:
In most lectures, the actual teaching was not very apparent. We were asked to answer
questions but we had not been taught the material very well.
In both the lectures and the authentic assessments, students were expected to research and read on
their own. Lectures were primarily used to give an overview of lecture material already posted on the
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