Student feedback drives continuous improvement
Student feedback is a powerful driver of positive change at Liverpool School of Medicine. To show you how much student insights mean to us, each time you complete an evaluation survey, your name is entered into a prize draw for a £50 Amazon voucher, with winners picked from all year groups every term.
Amongst the lucky Payback for Feedback winners this time around were Year Two Student Doctor Jacob O’Connor and Year Three Student Doctor Maddie Upham.
Jacob says, “I think it’s so important for students to be able to give feedback and feel like improvements are being made with their values in mind.
I’m glad to see that our feedback means that changes are always happening to help us.
Jacob is one term into his second year at the School. “The highlight of this first term has been being able to get into campus more often and meet new people. Going into the new year, I’m looking forward to getting back out on placement and applying some more of the things we’ve learned.”
Maddie is in her third year of studies. This term she is most looking forward to the Artefacts Society’s Addams Family Musical!”
I think feedback is really important to improve the student experience and the quality of teaching and learning, so that we can be best prepared to provide quality care to our future patients.
The nuts and bolts of student feedback
The MBChB Quality Assurance Team works tirelessly to facilitate a multitude of feedback opportunities to allow student doctors to share their experiences and insights in the classroom and out on placement. So far, this academic year, the team has:
- Processed 105 evaluation reports across both theory and clinical evaluation.
- Analysed over 1000 student comments in relation to subject block and academic week content and delivery.
- Generated 20 actions to implement from theory evaluation.
- Provided 20 items for consideration across our Trusts and GP practices.
Theory evaluation allows students to provide feedback on their learning experience, covering areas such as organisation, how clear learning objectives were and how easy it was to access learning materials.
Student Doctors are also invited to complete a survey regarding their clinical placement which the team then analyses and provides an average score for each Trust and individual specialty.
Evaluation Data Analyst Suzie Wood explains, “We use a RAG (red/amber/green) system to flag the scores, ranging from excellent to significant improvement needed.
Every Trust receives a report at the end of each clinical rotation, along with student comments. We monitor these throughout the year and work with the Trusts on any action areas.
We analyse and monitor the GP placement data in exactly the same way. However, reports are shared with GP practices at the end of the year in order to protect student anonymity due to small student numbers on placement at any one time.”
Already implemented this academic year
All student feedback is carefully reviewed by Year Directors, Theme Leads and other key roles and the resulting actions and comments are shared regularly with student doctors via the Weekly Briefings.
While some action points will naturally be more complex and take longer to work through, Suzie highlights how some can be implemented almost immediately, making a difference to the student experience in a short timeframe.
We have some really good examples of actions that have already been put in place this year as a result of student feedback.
Year One Student Doctors asked for online lectures to be released earlier to allow for a longer gap to cover the material ahead of seminars. The Year Team has put plans in place to make this happen.
After Year Two Student Doctors shared that they would prefer fewer seminars and a more exam-style question format, this was implemented into all future subject blocks.
The Year Three Team have worked with Specialty Leads to make all clinical lectures for the year available in the virtual learning environment, so that students have access during the relevant clinical placement – a benefit highlighted by Year Three Student Doctors.
Feedback from Year Four Student Doctors is being used to optimise the GP pre-placement session, working to remove any duplication or repetition of information, taking into account that it is the students’ second 2nd GP placement.
Following student input, the Clinical Skills team worked to provide clinical sessions for Year Five Student Doctors returning to the School after a year completing an intercalated degree.
Discover more
- Liverpool Student Doctors can learn more about quality insurance at the School on the student intranet (link).
- Read more about Suzie Wood’s role as an Evaluation Data Analyst and highlights of implementations from student input in 2020-21 in this article (link).
- Winners of the Payback for Feedback prize draw for this term will be announced in the student bulletin. Every evaluation survey you complete means one more entry into the draw for a £50 Amazon voucher.