As detailed in this chapter, the emergence of student feedback-based evaluation in Australian higher education institutions can be traced to the development of newly emerging academic research or development units in the early 1980’s. These units used student feedback as a formative development tool to assist academics to improve their teaching (Moses, 1986; Nulty, 2000). The design of these tools tended to reflect the seminal work of local researchers Falk and Dow (1971) and Marsh (1981, 1982), who
advocated the use of such instruments in Australian universities. Archival research suggests most of the initial exploratory use of student feedback-based evaluation in the early to mid-1980’s was in universities with sufficient resources to support such work - most notably the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland and the Australian National University. Using the example of the
Australian National University, Miller (1984) identified six reasons that had been identified to adopt student feedback-based evaluation. Four of these were clear academic development motives (albeit largely in deficit form):
investigating a known problem improvements to a program re-organisation of material
examining the impact of an innovation
The remaining two were more aligned to accountability:
the validation of a programme or course (in anticipation of a course review) supporting applications for tenure or promotion.
At another early adopting institution (the University of Queensland), the reasons identified by staff using the new student feedback-based evaluation model were similarly focussed around academic development. In two separate broadly-based surveys of academics conducted in the early 1980’s, over 80% of respondents identified diagnostic feedback to improve individual teaching as their motive in volunteering to participate in the use of student feedback surveys. A further 20% gave promotion as either the sole reason, or one of the reasons, for involvement in student evaluation (Moses, 1986). This also demonstrates that even in its earliest Australian
manifestations, the tensions between what Barrie et al. (2008) succinctly describes as improving versus proving were apparent. Yet, as a national survey of Directors of the emerging academic development units in Australian universities conducted at a similar time illustrated, student feedback was still considered to be a peripheral development tool when compared to staff consultation, professional development or curriculum or course reviews (Moses, 1985).
However, gradually over the next two decades, student feedback-based evaluation was to be progressively adopted across all Australian institutions. It would also play an ever-
greater role in informing the contested domains of teaching quality improvement and institutional quality assurance (Barrie et al, 2008). However, as evidence presented in this chapter has demonstrated its role in quality assurance was to gradually overwhelm its original quality improvement motive. Critical to this was the elevating levels of quality assurance, including:
the introduction of externally-defined performance measures from 1991 for Australian universities, following on from the Dawkins reforms
the introduction of regular national quality assurance audits of all institutions from 1993 to determine the quality of internal practices
the formal linking of university self-assessments, external monitoring and funding in 1999 with the establishment of the Australian Universities Quality Agency, which highlighted the need for mandatory student feedback on units for ‘consistency and other quality assurance purposes’ (Alderman, Towers, & Bannah, 2012, p. 268) the introduction of performance funding in 2005-06 and its formalising into the
Learning and Teaching Performance Fund in 2007
It has been argued these series of significant actions effectively transformed the ‘academic performance evaluation process from an autonomous self-critical exercise undertaken voluntarily, to an externally monitored surveillance exercise (Schuck et al., 2008, p. 244). However, perhaps most influential in accelerating the take up of internal forms of student-feedback based evaluation was the introduction of the national Course Experience Questionnairein 1993, combined with its further expansion and the public release of its outcomes from 2002, outlined earlier in this chapter. This effectively elevated student opinion as a key metric in how universities were perceived, how they were funded (at least at some points over the last two decades) and the ability of institutions to recruit new students. As Barrie (2000) observed:
For academic development units, the collection of student evaluation of teaching data (had) traditionally focussed on the use of such data as a prompt for reflection and as a basis for planning improvements…while many academic units have, in the past, been primarily concerned with improvingteaching and learning at the level of individual teachers or courses, increasingly they are now also being called upon to
It is difficult to over-estimate the impact of the introduction of the CEQ in driving to fundamental reforming of the function of institutional student feedback systems. The data generated by the CEQ is aggregated from the reflections of completing graduates observing in retrospect their learning experiences across comparative courses of study (and not individual units or lecturers). As CEQ outcomes rose in social prominence throughout the 1990’s, a strong incentive was created for institutions to more critically scrutinise context-specific student feedback to address potential problems that may emerge more publicly later in lag CEQ data (Barrie & Ginns, 2007). At first glance, the most logical step would have seemed to be adopting the CEQ as an internal student feedback questionnaire. However, the specific design of the CEQ as a national graduate survey, did not lend itself easily to this adaptation. This meant, as Barrie et al. (2005) observe, ‘rather than adapting the national survey….most Australian universities have instead developed new surveys for use at the level of the individual subjects that make up a degree course’ (p. 278). Reflecting this effect, research conducted in 2008, 2009 and 2012 demonstrate that:
almost all Australian universities had a developed a quantitative form of student- feedback-based evaluation, however there is considerable variance between institutions (Alderman et al., 2012; Barrie et al., 2008; Davies et al., 2009) these approaches to student feedback-based evaluation are strongly
idiosyncratic, reflecting individual institutional histories, cultures and politics in which they have developed (Barrie et al., 2008)
surveys rarely have any explicit theoretical basis, but have generally carried face validity in their design (Barrie et al., 2008)
most universities had a range of standardised surveys (most frequently around teaching and course design) that were voluntary and initiated by the individual, typically involving core and optional items (Barrie et al., 2008; Davies et al., 2009)
at an individual level, data was primarily used for ‘individual improvement and to inform teaching practice’, but with an equally strong focus on evidence for promotion and performance management.
at an institutional level, it was used in four ways: strategic performance management, performance-based funding, internal/external quality audits and internal comparisons and reviews (Barrie et al. 2008 pp. 27-30)
use of student feedback data was rapidly changing and being re-orientated to ‘direct and monitor strategic change rather than simply collecting data for individuals’ use in promotion or for individual teaching improvement’ (Barrie et al. 2008 p. 49)
The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), which was established in 2011 to regulate and assure the quality of Australian higher education has mandated the use of student-feedback based evaluation as part of institutional quality assurance systems. This, along with the 2014 Review of the Demand Driven Funding System detailed earlier, has further institutionalised student feedback as a seemingly permanent fixture in the Australian higher education landscape. However, in the contemporary higher education institution, significant tensions remain unresolved. Layers of institutional history frame the internal shape and use of student-feedback based
evaluation. These shape continuing localised tensions between the contesting objectives of academic-course development, internal and external quality assurance and individual performance assessment. Reviewing a range of available institutional discussion papers, university trade union reflections and student feedback forums, it seems these tensions are embodied in current internal policy debates around critical questions (some of which are familiar and some emerging) such as:
a) whether participation in student-feedback based evaluation should be voluntary or made compulsory for academics (and even students);
b) whether data should be private to the requesting academic or publicly available; c) whether evaluation processes should be overseen by academic development units or
statistical or quality assurance units;
d) whether student feedback outcomes should be a valid metric for negative (as well as positive) performance assessments;
e) whether data should be made internally and externally comparable so as to enhance the scope of the metric (and thereby increase levels of accountability);
f) whether declining student response rates to online surveys is lessening the validity and reliability of the data;
g) whether internal institutional questionnaires are more directly aligned to the national CEQ to maximise the opportunities to identify ‘problems’ before they emerge more publicly; and
h) less frequently, but no less importantly, whether student-feedback based evaluation remains a useful determinant input into the assessment of the quality of teaching and learning.