Putting students in the picture: Student perceptions and expectations of evaluation at the University of New England

Cathryn McCormack, University of New England, New South Wales

Student evaluation of lecturer performance and units or subjects has been widely used in Australian universities for many years to gather data for institutional purposes. However, a scan of policies and processes published in various Australian university websites reveals students are rarely mentioned outside of the data collection process. Likewise, the literature focuses more on validity and reliability of data than on involving students. Given this, the current study is being undertaken to investigate student perceptions of UNE's existing evaluation processes and their expectations of future involvement, such as, but not limited to, receiving feedback on changes made as a result of the evaluation survey. Data collection is currently in process. Semi-structured focus group discussions will be held with approximately 40 students. As communication between students and staff varies significantly by delivery mode, the groups are divided by four delivery modes: on-campus, off-campus regularly attending residential schools (RRS), off-campus rarely attending residential schools (NRS), and online. Interestingly, initial results show that off-campus RRS students are unaware of our current processes including confidentiality issues. Further data analysis hopes to establish a basis for recommendations on policy, process and presentation of data so that students and the institution derive greater benefit from evaluation.