Review of an organisation's student survey system
Hearing the voice of students for the purpose of improving practice is important for tertiary education organisations. It is however difficult to find the balance between the information needs of the organisation on the one hand, and the amount of time that is asked from students to participate in surveys on the other.
A colleague and I were asked to conduct a review of the student survey system in an organisation, in order to propose a system that reduced the number of questionnaires, and at the same time provided meaningful data to inform decision-making at institutional, departmental, programme and teaching levels. To understand what was understood by 'meaningful data', it was important for us to hear the voice of the people who used the surveys, and focus group disucssuons were held with many teams across the organsiation.
In our report we defined clear purposes for surveys at each level, and made proposals for conducting the surveys, selecting the questions and reducing the number of surveys in alignment with the relevant purpose. We also identified how the system needed to be integrated with institutional self-assessment, rather than student surveys being seen as stand-alone evaluations.
Most recommendations are currently being implemented.