Mystery Shopper Lecture Feedback Programme – a collaborative project between staff and students at a graduate entry medical school

Abstract

The pilot study described is an innovative model which ensures that lecturers receive relevant and tailored feedback from students in order to improve their delivery of lectures, ultimately improving student education.The current method of lecture feedback at Warwick Medical School asks students to comment on a whole term’s worth of lectures at once – consequently feedback is often non-specific and unconstructive.This project has been rolled out by a collaborative team of four medical students and one Faculty member. The project team designed a training event to instruct 10-15 students from each year group to deliver constructive and useful feedback to lecturers. The project team designed the online feedback form, which is completed by the trained students after observing a lecture. Students sign up to review lectures via a digital platform managed by the project team. Once the feedback form is submitted, it is quality-control-assessed by a Faculty member before being sent anonymously to the lecturer.This project allows medical students to provide lecturers with meaningful information about what they did well and how they can improve. Initial feedback from lecturers has been positive; they have valued the constructive criticism and the suggestions they have been given for improving future lectures.