Student Voice and Surveys
Capturing student feedback to create motivation and a better learning experience.
Introduction
What is the student voice?
When students actively shape their learning experiences and outcomes, we call it the ‘student voice’.
Why the student voice is important
Capturing the student voice helps us to:
- empower students and staff to become active agents of change and innovation
- enhance the quality of teaching and learning, by using learner feedback and insights
- encourage students to build a greater sense of belonging, which creates a more democratic and inclusive student experience.
It’s important to ensure that all voices are equally represented, and everybody has the opportunity to contribute.
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Fruitful university-student dialogue can improve student engagement, student satisfaction, performance indicators and university-student cooperation.
Formal ways to capture the student voice
Unit surveys
- Timing: each term
- Level: all levels
Unit surveys provide an overview of the student’s experience on the unit, which is available to all unit leaders.
National Student Survey (NSS)
- Timing: spring term
- Level: all final-year undergraduates
Students answer multiple-choice questions about their satisfaction with various aspects of the course. They can also comment on the best things about the course and areas they’d like to improve.
NSS results are collated nationally and then returned to the institution, organised by department and by course. The data plays a crucial role in course improvement plans.
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How NSS data is presented
Use the full analysis for context
You can use the NSS initial summary data to get an idea of annual changes. However, don’t use the summary data alone to make decisions about enhancement.
Work with the comprehensive analysis available in your Power BI reports, which enables you to contextualise the data.
This Power BI dataset provides a comparison of results to the sector.
Compare your results with other institutions
Look at your subject results in comparison with similar departments in England and Wales. There is strong evidence (see HEFCE’s 2014 UK review of the provision of information about higher education) that certain subjects generally do better than others, regardless of institution.
You can also use the HESA Unistats website to look at the results for departments or programmes from comparable universities.
Review the open comments
Look at the open comments for your programme to see if they illuminate the findings of the multiple-choice questions. Is there a particular issue which students are pleased or concerned with? There may not be anything obvious, but these comments can help narrow down improvement areas.
Check against the unit survey results
Revisit Manchester Met’s unit survey responses for the programme to see if any themes are common to both surveys.
Ask more questions if required
Decide whether you need to learn more from students to clarify the results. If the open comments don’t link strongly with the scored questions, you might need to ask additional questions using course representatives or small focus groups. These might be questions such as:
- What would you think about if you were asked to say to what degree you agree with the statement ‘Feedback on my work has been prompt’?
- When have you needed to contact staff and why?
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How to use NSS data
The data you receive in the comprehensive spreadsheet is divided into several sections, including:
- improvement trends
- department overview course summary
- results for individual questions
The same data is used to generate each set of graphs. The different presentation modes will help you decide where to focus your action planning.
Improvement trends
You can sort improvement trends by faculty, department and course. You can compare Manchester Met to the sector averages for each of the 27 multiple-choice questions and the additional questions we choose to ask students. The additional questions may vary annually.
Department overview
The three graphs show the ‘leverage’ that individual departments have had on the overall Manchester Met result. The graphs also refer to sector averages.
Course summary
Course summary data compares the faculty, department and course level results to sector averages or last year’s results.
This data gives you a chance to see how other programmes are doing in comparison to the sector, so that you can share good practice and priorities for improvement.
Priority areas
You can sort priority areas data by faculty, department and course. It gives you an overview of improvements in relation to the sector. For instance, if the performance on a course for question three has improved in absolute terms, but the sector has improved by a higher percentage, then it may be worth doing further investigation into that area of activity.
Informal ways to capture the student voice
Informal feedback can help you to design content and activities. It also offers a useful temperature check for things such as engagement, inclusion and knowledge gain.
You can get informal feedback in different ways, depending on the size of the group or the teaching situation.
Informal conversations
We encourage you to speak informally with learners where possible. Informal conversations at the beginning or end of a session can be useful, or peer work in a larger group.
Show learners how much you value their opinions and contributions by actively listening to them. You can do this by responding to feedback and suggestions in a meaningful, transparent way.
Feedback apps
Apps can be useful for gathering feedback. Students can share their opinions, ideas, questions and concerns anonymously, inclusively and conveniently.
Many platforms also record the outcomes of activities, which you can review and use for planning future teaching.
Synchronous apps for capturing feedback
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Vevox
Vevox is an interactive audience response system, which is added as a plug-in to MS PowerPoint. The Vevox plug-in extends the functionality of MS PowerPoint to deliver a small range of question types:
Multiple choice
Rating
Free text
Students can use computers, smartphones, or mobile devices while Vevox displays live responses and feedback within PowerPoint during a teaching session.
You can use Vevox to:
- ask students questions
- gather feedback and thoughts
- poll their opinions
- conduct entrance and exit polls
Students can also submit questions to the tutor, which other students can upvote or like.
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Kahoot
Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that makes it easy to create, share and play learning games or trivia quizzes.
You can create a fun feedback activity in minutes where the format and number of questions are up to you. You can add videos, images and diagrams to questions to increase engagement.
Kahoot! is best played in a group setting, using rapid-fire answers and multiple-choice answers.
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Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a standalone quizzing and polling tool. You can build presentations in Mentimeter or upload your PowerPoint slides.
It provides a range of question types and different modes of delivery for more advanced users of quizzing and polling tools.
Mentimeter focuses on anonymous responses and can encourage interaction from more reluctant participants.
Mentimeter works best synchronously in person or online. You can use it to ask open questions to encourage debate and feedback.
Apps with aynchronous and asynchronous options
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Padlet
Padlet is a digital bulletin board where students can post text, images, videos, links, and more.
Colleagues can create Padlets with different themes or objectives, such as temperature checks, summarising, or evaluating.
Students can add posts or comment on others, as can tutors, which can be a good way of responding specifically to feedback.
Padlet can be used in a live synchronous way or you can set it as an activity for students to engage with between live sessions. For example you may have a Padlet available after each session for students to provide feedback.
You can export the content of your Padlets and even embed them into your Moodle area.
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Nearpod
Nearpod is a web-based tool that helps teachers create interactive teaching resources, whether in the classroom or online. This includes interactive presentations that can be created to contain quizzes, polls, videos, collaboration boards, and more.
Students can access a teacher’s presentation through a unique code. The teacher then moves the class through the presentation and lets students interact with the media as they go, which they can do on their mobile device.
Teachers can also opt for ‘student-paced’ mode, where the student controls the flow of the lesson.
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Digital Me
Building confidence with using digital tools is an important aspect of the student experience.
Digital Me: Curriculum Design contains practical advice about approaches to building the digital into programmes, with information about curriculum mapping, digital learning outcomes and designing aligned activities.