Page 13 - UWI Quality Circle FlipBook

The UWI Quality Policy– improving student satisfaction
Tashfeen Ahmad, PhD
Lecturer of Productivity and Quality Management
Mona School of Business and Management
T o me, The UWI Quality Policy is a means by which I can improve levels of student satisfaction through assuring the quality of my lectures. My experience is that end of course student evaluations assist in ensuring quality in university teaching, provide a less biased and more independent method of gauging a lecturer’s effectiveness; they help to establish a framework to better quantify and reward
good teaching outcomes.
The data from end-of-course student evaluations benefit the lecturer, department and students who take the course subsequently. The UWI has undertaken many initiatives over the years to improve student participation in the end-of-course evaluation exercise. In the last five years, The UWI has moved from paper- based course evaluation surveys to online surveys.
Current research continues to confirm that use and implementation of technology is a necessary but not sufficient condition to increased online response rates to teacher evaluation surveys. Sometimes, that is one reason student participation in course evaluation exercises is less than desired.
One size does not fit all but some techniques can help increase student response rates. The most important and fundamental ingredients for raising online response rates depends to a large extent on the commitment, engagement and buy in of students, teachers and administrators to the process. For example, studies and experience indicate that the biggest determinant for student participation in online course evaluations is the level of engagement they experience from lecturers.
Those institutions that take the time to communicate and explain the process, and to show how student responses will be used or incorporated to improve course delivery, see improved response rates. On the other hand, students who do not feel a part of the process or think their feedback will not be taken seriously, or lecturers who do not effect changes consequent on feedback engage the process less.
Using these best practices has helped me to increase student response rates in my course evaluation exercises. In other words, this is how I realized my meaning of The UWI Quality Policy!
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