Course and module evaluations – from consultation to partnership

Kate LittleSenior Project OfficerNational Union of Students

kate.little@nus.org.uk

Today’s session

• What is partnership? The NUS model• The challenges of surveys in a partnership

context• Constructive use of data for enhancement:

NUS-UCU principles• Completing the jigsaw: situating student

feedback within a broader picture

Student feedback in context: student engagement

• Concepts around student engagement:– Co-creators– Co-producers– Active participants– Students as collaborators– Students as agents for change…

• The concept of ‘partnership’ has gained significant currency.

Background

• The 2010 NUS/HEA Student Engagement Toolkit framed partnership as the goal of student engagement.

• The QAA published the new Student Engagement Chapter of the UK Quality Code.

• Lots of organisations and institutions are talking about and taking action on student engagement and/or partnership.

• NUS has published ‘A Manifesto for Partnership’

Choosing partnership:Rejecting the alternatives

Why partnership?

Rejecting consumerism

• Student engagement is not happening inside a policy vacuum.

• A narrative of ‘competition’ and ‘choice’ offers students an inflated perception of their power, when it is in fact limited to commenting only on what has been sold to them.

• ‘Customer is always right’ devalues the role and expertise of educators.

Rejecting consumerism

“Regardless of whether students agree with the values and characteristics of the funding model in which they sit, they may adopt behaviours we associate with consumerism unless we offer a new and compelling way of thinking about learning”

Rethinking apprenticeship

• Idea that a student attends university in order to gain mastery in a particular subject and spends time with experts in order to do this.

• Advocates might be wary of ‘too much’ student engagement on the basis that students cannot be expected to know what they want to learn in advance of learning it.

Rethinking apprenticeship

• We don’t necessarily need to wholly reject this approach, but we do need to reimagine it.

• Students are apprentices in the business of student engagement - they will need support and coaching to engage effectively as partners.

• This support could come from sources other than academic staff, particularly the students’ union.

Rethinking apprenticeship

• Students can never be ‘equal partners’ because they do not have the necessary ‘expertise’ to engage with academic staff on an equal basis…is what some people say.

• ‘Equality’ is as much about respecting each other’s views as it is about having similar levels of knowledge.

Rethinking apprenticeship • Students provide a very clear sense of what is in the student

interest. • This takes leadership - the ability to assess where the

student interest lies and argue for it and the ability to listen to various constituencies to ensure their concerns are understood and that they are informing the debate.

• Atomised student feedback could never substitute serious student representation.

The importance of student leadership

What is partnership?

• A partnership approach will in most cases involve work between an institution and its students’ union to determine an institutional understanding. But, we can sketch out some broad parameters…

What is partnership?

• The sum total of student engagement activity does not equal partnership.

• Activities emerge from the beliefs and intentions that underpin an partnership approach.

• At its roots, partnership is about investing students with the power to co-create not just knowledge or learning, but the institution itself e.g. widening access, community engagement, sport, capital investment.

The importance of students’ unions

• In the student movement we value collectivism and democratic representation.

• Individual students may engage in various forms in their learning, but a whole system of partnership must flow through the students’ union.

• A new understanding of collectivism- accounting for differing views and concerns, whilst sustaining the possibility of solidarity among students.

What is partnership?

• Genuine and meaningful dispersal of power so that students are enabled to contribute to educational change.

• Shared responsibility- for identifying the problem or opportunity for improvement, for devising a solution and for co-delivering of that solution.

• Students and staff at all levels working together to achieve agreed goals.

• Dispute that occurs in good faith on both sides.

Surveys: the antithesis of partnership?

Partnership:

Relationships, not contactJoint responsibility

Local distribution of powerDifferent expertise is equally valued

It’s not all doom and gloom…

I’m not saying surveys are terrible!

•Surveys are a good starting point for conversations•You may catch the “read and run” students•More likely to catch time-poor students e.g. part time, distance learning, student parents, employed students•Gives you a sense of what most feel – can then delve into why through other mechanisms•It’s often about how you use survey data and what happens afterwards

Partnership in practice

How can course and module evaluation surveys be meaningfully embedded into a system of enhancement in partnership between staff and students?Key tenets:•Relationships, not contact•Joint responsibility •Local distribution of power•Different expertise is equally valued

Making surveys more partnership-friendly

• The balance between local specialisation and centralised data collection

• Freedom of students and teaching staff to help shape questions

• Opportunities for module staff and students to engage in dialogue about the results

• Timing of the surveys and students seeing changes happen

• Integration of surveys with other student voice mechanisms

• Where are decisions made?• Behaviour-based vs opinion-based surveys –

balance of responsibility

Completing the jigsaw

“For the NSS to be part of the conversation between students and the institution rather than simply a set of demands, it is important that the survey is integrated into the systems of student representation. A powerful message from several institutions is that the use of the NSS as a tool for enhancement depends on the extent to which it helps to build productive staff-student partnerships.”

HEA (2012) – “Making in count: reflecting on the National Student Survey in the process of enhancement”

Case study: Gloucestershire

“if we are requesting comments on a module that is nearing completion, are their voices actually being heard or indeed being acted upon?”

Sports Education module

Evaluation questionnaire repeated at week 2, 6 and 12 to track students’ changing expectations

Students felt their voices were being listened to and could see changes; also became familiar with the questionnaire and could reflect holistically

https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/module_evaluation_process.pdf

Case study: Glasgow

Masters education research module: students encouraged to set up an action research project to evaluate their module

“My role as the module co-ordinator was to act as a facilitator and guide rather than taking any control of the direction the evaluation went in.”

Students evaluates aspects of the module the teacher had not thought of, e.g. appropriateness of reading list.

Changes were made iteratively and students became highly engaged in the module.

https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/University_of_Glasgow_Collaborative_evaluation.pdf

Constructive use of data

NUS-UCU principles on researching the student experience launched August 2014When thinking about survey data it is useful to think about the following questions: •How do students know how to feedback constructively? •Do the measures which are set actually work? •How do we ensure that we don’t get carried away with league table and targets agenda? •How do we ensure that this is about engagement and partnership, running counter to consumerism?

NUS-UCU Principles

1. Let’s empower students and staff to work together to improve. 2. All data should link to a structured quality agenda, drawing on

multiple sources to form conclusions.3. There should be equality of access to information between the

institution, students and staff. 4. Let’s preserve the anonymity of those giving feedback as well

as individuals who may be the subject of feedback. 5. Surveys and research should be separate from praise or

complaint mechanisms, but some data can be useful in feeding into further research.

6. Findings and actions should be fed back to respondents in a timely manner, and where possible solutions should improve the quality of those who responded.

7. Students should be allowed to work with staff to develop solutions to problems identified in data.

Working in partnership with students

• Local context is everything• Relationships not contact• Responsibility not comment• Dialogue not consultation• Backed up by strategic

partnership between institution and students’ union

• Mutual respect and trust

Final words…

“EvaSys is a data collection tool to aid module and course improvements and not an improvement tool in itself. It is the culture of listening to student feedback and acting on it that is important.”

(Nottingham Trent Quality Handbook)

Further Information

• NUS’ Manifesto for Partnership http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/news/article/highereducation/Rachel-Wenstone-launches-a-Manifesto-for-Partnership/

• The Student Engagement Partnership http://www.tsep.org.uk/

• HEA: “Making it count” report https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/resources/Making_it_count.pdf

• University of Leeds: The Partnership http://www.leeds.ac.uk/forstaff/homepage/342/the_partnership

kate.little@nus.org.uk