Introduction

The Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) for FENG

Frequency

Printing and assembling of forms

Distribution and collection of forms

Analysis and reporting of the SFQ data

Confidentiality

Enquiry about policies and procedural guidelines

Help from the EDC

Online help

Norms

An interactive tool for interpreting your SFQ score

Sample forms

Introduction

This document explains briefly the system for collecting student feedback on teaching in the Faculty of Engineering (FENG). The instrument, guidelines and procedures were developed by a Working Party comprising one member each from all departments in the FENG and two members from the then Educational Development Unit. Drafts of the revised guidelines and instrument had been circulated to all staff members in the FENG for comments before they were finalised. Some slight modifications have subsequently been made to the instrument on the basis of the feedback from departments after the pilot in 1998/99, and at the suggestion of the QAC (AD) in 2001/02.

In May 2005, a Working Group was set up by the Learning and Teaching Committee (LTC) to conduct a comprehensive study of the guidelines and procedures with a view to recommending changes, where appropriate, to the system so that the collection of student feedback in PolyU will align with the outcome-based approach to teaching, learning and assessment adopted by the University. The Final Report of the Working Group, which includes recommendations for relevant changes to the system, was endorsed by LTC at its 30th meeting held on 4 October 2006.

In June 2009, the Learning and Teaching Committee decided to add one more question on subject workload in the SFQ Form. The purpose of the addition is to obtain more quantitative data about students’ engagement in the learning activities of a subject.

The following set of guidelines has been developed with reference to the broad institutional framework for collecting student feedback endorsed by LTC.

The Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) for FENG

All staff members in the FENG will collect feedback from students using the FENG SFQ form. The revised SFQ has two sections:

Section I: About the subject

This first section focuses on students’ feedback on the subject and is sub-divided into two parts:

Section IA: This part consists of six university-wide standard items of the closed-response type, asking students to express their views on their learning experience of the subject.

Section IB: This part contains two open-ended questions which ask students to comment on their learning experience of the subject and suggest how it can be improved.

Section II: About the staff member

This second section aims to collect students’ feedback on the teaching of the staff member and is sub-divided into three parts:

Section IIA: This part has seven questions of the close-response type, in which five are core Faculty items and two are university-wide standard items. The five core items focus on the various aspects of the staff member's teaching, and the two standard items ask for students’ overall view about the teaching of the staff member.

Section IIB: This part contains one university-wide standard item on the extent to which the staff member has used English during teaching.

Section IIC: This part contains two open-ended questions which invite students to comment on the staff member’s teaching and suggest how it can be improved.

Frequency

All subjects taught by FENG staff will be surveyed, near the end of the semester. However, when more than one staff member is involved in teaching a significant portion of a subject (say, more than 4 sessions), the teaching of the staff member will be surveyed towards the end of the staff member's teaching. Whether or not the subject will also be surveyed at that point is to be decided by the Subject Leader.

Part-time lecturers (visiting lecturers) could be included in the SFQ exercise if the department so decides, but their SFQ scores will not be included in the compilation of the department norms. Teaching assistants and research students should not be part of the SFQ exercise.

In situations where only the staff member is surveyed but not the subject, the students should be instructed to complete only the sections on the staff member and background information, and leave the subject part blank.

According to the policy set by LTC in July 2000, when service teaching is carried out (i.e., when the subject is taught by staff members from other departments), the teaching department should be responsible for carrying out the SFQ evaluation. Information collected about the subject, however, should be released to the hosting department(s) by the teaching department concerned.

Subject leaders or teachers should liase with the departmental AO/EO to decide on the most appropriate date and time for administering the SFQ forms.

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Printing and assembling of forms

The SFQ for FENG optical-mark-read forms are available from the Educational Development Centre (EDC). The departmental AO/EO is responsible for assembling sufficient copies of the form for distribution. The forms should be put in a sealed envelope with a duly completed FENG SFQ Administration Form attached to it.

Distribution and collection of forms

The procedures for distributing and collecting the SFQ forms are essentially the same as those in the original SFQ system.

The departmental AO/EO is responsible for arranging a suitable person to distribute and collect the SFQ forms at the date, time and venue suggested by the staff member or Subject Leader concerned. It is important that when the SFQ are administered, only one subject/staff member should be evaluated in one session. Otherwise, students will easily get confused thereby introducing a large margin of error in their responses.

The staff member concerned should be absent from the room during the process of distributing, completing, and collecting the SFQ forms.

Completed SFQ forms should be put in a sealed envelope, signed and returned to the departmental AO/EO, who will then pass them to the EDC for data input and analysis.

To ensure the validity of the student responses, the person(s) responsible for distributing and collecting the forms should follow strictly the procedures specified below.

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Analysis and reporting of the SFQ data

The EDC will be responsible for analysing and reporting of the SFQ data. Two different sets of results will be reported - one focusing on the teaching of the subject alone, and the other incorporating the results of both the teaching of the subject and the staff member.

Individual staff member teaching the subject will receive both the reports on his/her teaching and on the teaching of the subject. Summaries of the results will also be made available to the Dean of the faculty on request. A copy of the same report will be sent to the respective head of department. A copy of the report on the teaching of the subject will be sent to the department concerned for programme or subject evaluation purposes, and will be made available to the programme/subject team. After the exam results have been confirmed at the Exam Board Meeting, the completed SFQ forms will be returned to the staff member concerned so that he/she can peruse the students' responses to the open-ended questions.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is still emphasised in the SFQ exercise. All SFQ data and reports on individual staff members are treated by the EDC as confidential to that staff member, except that a copy of the SFQ results will be sent to the respective heads of department. The results will also be made available to the Dean on request.

The EDC will not keep any hard copies of the SFQ results, and will not disclose the SFQ data of an individual staff member to anybody other than the staff member and the head of department concerned, or discuss it with anybody else

Enquiry about policies and procedural guidelines

All matters in relation to the policies and procedures of the administration of the FENG SFQ should be addressed to the respective Chairpersons of the Departmental Learning & Teaching Committee, or directly to the Dean of FENG when faculty-level decisions are warranted.

Help from the EDC

The EDC assists the Faculty/School in processing and reporting the SFQ results. Help is also available from EDC for individual faculty/school members in interpreting the SFQ results, and planning teaching improvements based on the results. Please refer to the following list for enquiries:

Online help 

Online information and help are also available on the EDC Website for other forms of teaching evaluations and the interpretation of SFQ results: http://edc.polyu.edu.hk/sfq-collect.htm

Norms

An interactive tool for interpreting your SFQ score

Sample forms
The Student Feedback Questionnaire for FENG