University of Tasmania, Australia

Feedback

Feedback is an essential element of good teaching practice. Feedback is an opportunity for educators to have their teaching critiqued by their students and peers. It provides the basis for continuous refinement and improvement of delivery.

Student Feedback

Students, as the recipients of our teaching, are in a unique position to provide feedback either informally or formally on a range of teaching and learning topics including workload, engagement, resources, assessment and quality of relationships. An excellent resource for informal micro-evaluations is available here. 

At UTAS formal feedback is sought through survey tools. These survey tools provide both quantitative and qualitative feedback that can be used to reflect on teaching practices, improve unit delivery and to monitor the effects of implementing new teaching approaches.

SETL -unit level feedback

SETL is the University of Tasmania’s Student Evaluation of Teaching and Learning program which was introduced in 1993. SETL is a system for feedback from students to academic teaching staff to help in the formulation and development of unit organisation and teaching .

This program serves as the main systematic way for students to tell the University what they think of units they study and the teaching they receive. SETL offers academic staff customised evaluations of their teaching and of the unit as a whole.

Further information is available on the SETL website.

CEQ -course evaluation questionnaire

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) gathers data about graduates' perceptions of their higher education experience.

In May and October each year, the CEQ survey is mailed to the previous year's graduating students. Data collection is completed in September and the results are published in February the following year. This means that the reports of graduating students' experiences are not available until at least a year after they finish their courses.

GDS -graduate destination survey

Every year, the Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) form is administered to all new university graduates about four months after they complete requirements for a degree. The form for bachelor degree graduates or coursework postgraduates is coupled with the CEQ. A GDS form coupled with the PREQ is sent to higher degree research graduates.

Qualitative Data

Qualitative student feedback is gathered with Student Evaluation of Teaching and Learning (SETL) data and as part of the Course Experience Questionaire (CEQ)

At present analysis of SETL comments is the responsibility of teaching staff, while the CEQuery project analyses CEQ qualitative data from across Australia. A project to evaluate CEQ data for the Faculty of Education is underway.

Peer Feedback

Peer feedback is a process of shared inquiry; a scholarly dialogue about teaching practices. This dialogue takes place in an atmosphere of trust and empathy with the goal of improving teaching practice and maximising student potential.