A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

202 ❘
Teaching, supervising, learning
METHODS OF FEEDBACK
The question of the source from which feedback is to be obtained is closely related to the
question of how it is to be sought (see Figure 14.1). Indeed, any such overview of sources
and methods in combination highlights the rich array of possibilities that are currently
available to university teachers in seeking and making use of feedback.
FEEDBACK FROM
STUDENTS
• questionnaire and
pro forma surveys
• focus groups
• e-mails and web boards
• student–staff liaison
committees
SELF-GENERATED
FEEDBACK
• previewing
• retracing
• observation
(via audio/video)
INCIDENTAL
FEEDBACK
• monitoring and
reappraisal
(e.g. of attendance
patterns, attentiveness,
take-up of options)
FEEDBACK FROM
COLLEAGUES
• observation
• previewing
• retracing
• collaborative
comment
Figure 14.1 Sources and methods of feedback
As far as methods of obtaining feedback from students are concerned, questionnaires
remain extremely popular – largely, we may suspect, on two grounds. First, there is the
widespread availability of off-the-shelf questionnaires, which can be broad-brush or
geared to particular areas or aspects of teaching (e.g. Day et al., 1998), and which are
regularly bartered and cannibalised by course teams and individuals alike. Second, there
are the attractions of a method that offers every student the chance to respond while at
the same time generating data which are quantifiable. However, in an age when mass
higher education has led to much greater student diversity, it is important to ensure that
questionnaires – particularly to first-year students – log some information about students’
backgrounds and aspirations, so that course teams can verify whether the needs of
different student constituencies are being equally well served (Hounsell and Hounsell,
2007). The Monash Experience Questionnaire (CHEQ, 2007) provides an excellent illustration
of how this kind of background information can be readily collected in periodic
university-wide student surveys. Similarly, Queensland University of Technology’s Firstyear
experience survey (Case study 1) offers a good example of a questionnaire that is both
tailored to the expectations and experience of its target audience while also tapping into
distinctive features of the mission of the university concerned – for example, QUT’s
commitment to ‘real-world learning’ and graduate employability.