Abstract
BackgroundStudent feedback has played an important role in the maintenance of quality and standards in higher education. Perhaps the most commonly used method to capture feedback is a series of questions or statements where students indicate their degree of satisfaction or agreement. Focus groups offer an alternative means of capturing ‘richer’ qualitative data relating to students’ thoughts on course structure. Aside from student evaluations, student examination performance has been used as a method to evaluate the efficacy of curriculum changes at programme level. However, this data is utilised less so at a ‘finer detail’ level to identify specific issues with the delivery of teaching.Case presentationThe purpose of this report was to outline the approach taken using qualitative and quantitative data to identify problems with a specific area of teaching, inform a new teaching approach and to assess the impact of those changes. Following quantitative and qualitative analysis, a practical class on dairy herd fertility performance was highlighted as an area for improvement. After the introduction of the newly formatted practical class with a greater focus on self-directed learning, there was a significant increase in the average score (p < 0.001) and a decrease in the proportion of students failing (p < 0.001) the question that assessed the analysis of dairy herd fertility data. In addition, the R-squared value between students’ performance in the fertility question and their performance in the overall examination increased from 0.06 to 0.11.ConclusionsThe combination of qualitative focus group data and quantitative analysis of examination performance data represent robust methods for identifying problems associated with specific aspects of veterinary teaching.
Highlights
Student feedback has played an important role in the maintenance of quality and standards in higher education [1]
The combination of qualitative focus group data and quantitative analysis of examination performance data represent robust methods for identifying problems associated with specific aspects of veterinary teaching
Adaptation of teaching methodology Following the completion of the review process in 2017– 18, one topic was highlighted for tutorial redesign due to poor student performance in these questions and direct student feedback identifying important deficiencies in how the material was being delivered
Summary
Student feedback has played an important role in the maintenance of quality and standards in higher education [1]. Perhaps the most commonly used method to capture feedback is a series of questions or statements where students indicate their degree of satisfaction or agreement. Aside from student evaluations, student examination performance has been used as a method to evaluate the efficacy of curriculum changes at programme level. This data is utilised less so at a ‘finer detail’ level to identify specific issues with the delivery of teaching. After the introduction of the newly formatted practical class with a greater focus on self-directed learning, there was a significant increase in the average score (p < 0.001) and a decrease in the proportion of students failing (p < 0.001) the question that assessed the analysis of dairy herd fertility data. The R-squared value between students’ performance in the fertility question and their performance in the overall examination increased from 0.06 to 0.11
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