The journey of a student evaluation
Student evaluations are an integral part of the Quality Assurance process here at the School, and an important source of input and suggestions to optimise the student experience. In 2022 alone, the Quality Team processed 385 student evaluation reports and 16,922 individual student comments.
Every time you complete an evaluation report, your name is entered into a prize draw for a prize draw, where each term five lucky winners are picked at random to receive a £50 Amazon voucher. The more reports you fill out, the greater chance you have of winning!
This term’s winners are:
- Year 1: Celyn Rose
- Year 2: Shalwin Mathew
- Year 3: Tharenya Uthayakumar
- Year 4: Harry France
- Year 5: Agape Nunayon
Year 2 Student Doctor Shalwin Mathew has been enjoying face-to-face group small group teaching and the chance to meet new people. He is most looking forward to talking to more patients and gaining clinical experience from placement next term.
I believe that giving feedback helps to create a positive and supportive learning environment, where students can feel heard. This can ultimately lead to better long-term outcomes.
Year 4 Student Doctor Harry France says his highlight of the year was being able to see England beat Wales in his hometown of Sheffield, and France in Manchester at both the semi-final and final of the wheelchair rugby league world cup. For the new year, he is excited to get his Y4 exams done and move one step closer to becoming an FY1 doctor.
I value the fact that we are able to praise the staff at placement sites for going out of their way to help us so that they know we appreciate their hard work.
Year 5 Student Doctor Agape Nunayon says her favourite part of the year so far has been the FY1 PracTiSCE week, which she found to be ‘a great mix of activities that bring together all we have learnt and how to apply those as future FY1s.’ She is looking forward to a placement in Emergency Medicine placement as an opportunity to ‘practice and refine the wide range of procedural skills we have been taught.’
Sharing feedback is an opportunity to improve learning experiences for my peers as the improvements can be implemented quickly and be shared across other sites and future teaching sessions.
Congratulations to our winners! However, have you ever wondered what happens next after you hit ‘submit’ on your end of block evaluation or post-placement survey?
Dr Jennifer Saunders is the School’s Lead for Evaluation. She joined the University in July this year after eight years teaching at secondary and higher education level.
“I think this offers me quite a unique perspective on student evaluation - it has to be useful for driving continual improvements and it is my job to work with our Data Analysts to present the data collected from your surveys in a way that is actionable for the Year Directors, Theme Leads, Specialty Leads and Lecturers to identify key points and ways in which we can improve the course.
Throughout the academic year, there are 96 surveys released to students across the different year groups. The data from each of these is downloaded and cleaned, for example removing entries that are less than 50% complete, before being added to our master spreadsheets for analysis.
We have Excel dashboards that allow us to compare the data in a variety of different ways, such as how one specialty is delivered across multiple hospital sites or between one rotation and another to see whether the changes that have been implemented have had the desired effect on student experience.
We use Likert-type questions to provide numerical data from which we calculate the percentage agree, median, mean and standard deviation. The mean then gets colour coded to highlight excellent scores in green and areas for improvement in red or amber.
The Data Analysts then put together a report to be shared both within the School of Medicine and with hospital trusts and GP practices involved in your education.
This is where my job begins. I read all of the reports to ensure the data is presented usefully and the main highlights are written up succinctly for educators to use.
I look for areas to celebrate, so that we can share what is working well, and areas where School leaders can identify ways in which to improve the student experience.
I share an overview of student evaluation at a number of regular management meetings and provide reports and summaries for top level meetings within the School, ensuring our students have a voice at the highest levels. I also meet with Year Directors monthly to discuss evaluation highlights and action areas so that we can update you all on what we are doing to improve your experience.
When it comes to your experience on placement, we monitor the various sites’ responses to the feedback and the steps taken to improve your experience – of which there are many, big and small!
From reworking the delivery of CBL and clinical skills training, to putting on transport links and mixer events and even investing hundreds of thousands of pounds in facilities for students to enjoy.
So, as you can see, those couple of minutes you take to complete an evaluation kickstart a whole series of events and actions that really can make the biggest difference to the student experience so thank you for sharing your input with us!”
Discover more
- Learn more about how student feedback is utilised to drive continuous optimisation at the School on the Quality Assurance section of the student intranet (link).
- Keep an eye on your weekly briefings for the most recent ‘You Said, We Listened’ updates as to how your ideas and suggestions are being implemented on the programme.
- Be sure to complete all of your evaluation surveys. Your voice matters! And there might be a £50 Amazon voucher in it for you!