A School-wide approach to student voice
We made changes to ways for promoting student feedback, giving timely responses to feedback, and we facilitated the establishment of a School-wide and student-led platforms to discuss School level matters.
In practice, this meant we established the following:
- Stop/start/continue feedback
- EvaSys week
- Student Voice Committee
Contact: Robert Cowan
Overview
College: Arts
School and Subject: School of Humanities | Philosophy
Level: UG + PGT
Class size: (Several - not contingent on scale)
Course title: (Several - not contingent on scale)
Technologies or resources used: EvaSys questionnaire; Moodle
What was the motivation?
Stop/Start/Continue: Stop-Start-Continue is being used as a mid-semester feedback gathering and response opportunity. This is being encouraged for all courses and programmes. This was motivated by the feedback received in the NSS which showed that where subjects had used Stop-Start-Continue more widely, they received better NSS feedback responses.
EvaSys week: In response to poor EvaSys response rates and low staff completion of summary and response documents, all programmes and courses now distribute EvaSys questionnaires during the same week. This is advertised widely to staff and students and staff have been encouraged to set aside time in-class for completion of the questionnaire. A specific date for completion of summary and response documents have been built into the semester calendar.
Student Voice Committee: There was a lack of a student-led platforms for discussing School-level student matters so a Student Voice Committee was established.
What worked well and what didn’t?
We introduced these changes at the start of the academic year 2025-26 and we have already seen some positive developments.
Stop/Start/Continue is being used by more staff. Regular communication with staff to encourage them to try it has been important.
EvaSys week was rolled out in semester 1. There seems to have been a slight increase in returns.
Student Voice committee: The first meeting took place at the end of January, chaired by SRC School rep. There were around 30 students in attendance. Matters discussed included: the committee remit, internships to support the work of the committee, and two areas for focus were identified: space and workload.
What would you do differently next time?
We are looking at the use of QR codes for EvaSys questionnaire to make it easier for students to access the relevant survey which may be difficult to locate in an email inbox.