student feedback and leadership - Office for Learning and Teaching

Part B: Building Leadership Capacity - BUS: School of Economics, Finance & Marketing ART Report
8.5 Outcomes & Evaluation of Initiatives
What outcomes did the project achieve? Expected and unexpected?
Each of the four Common Core Course Coordinators evaluated and sought
feedback on the developments they had initiated as follows:
Stage 3: Observe and Evaluate
Student feedback was sought to identify the impact of the changes made
in each of the courses. In addition, staff observed the impact of these changes
on students in class, the type of communications received from students and
in some cases the impact on student results. Each course will be discussed
as follows:
MKTG1025 – Marketing Principles
First Semester 2008
Audience response systems were tested in two lecture times in Marketing
Principles – Class A (n=300) made up of first year school leavers and class
B (n=120) predominantly made up of mature age students. A total of 140
students registered for the trial, primarily from class B. The system was tested
in five sessions commencing in week four. The in-class participation rate
was disappointingly low. A focus group was conducted part way through
the semester and then followed up by an end of semester survey to identify
the reasons for this low uptake, particularly in class A.
There were many reasons for lack of participation, but predominantly it was
the cost, or perceived cost, associated with using the mobile phones. Many
students in class A had low value mobile phone plans which did not allow
them to connect to the internet, restricted their access to the provider’s
website, or charged them a premium to use the internet facility. Also, a majority
of the students from this class had never used the internet function on their
mobile phones and were uncertain as to exactly how much it was going
to cost them. The mature age students who had a low cost data package
or had employers pay for their mobile use were most willing and enthusiastic
in their participation in the trials.
In general, students had a favourable attitude towards the use of this
technology and indicated they would prefer a class where this technology
was used over one that did not, provided it was made available free of cost.
Both classes indicated that such initiatives would help them in their learning
process. Class A, which had the lowest participation rate, also had a less
positive attitude towards the use of technology, compared to class B which
participated more actively. Class B saw benefits of this technology, but
did not wish to see the expansion of such technologies to take over
conventional teaching.
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