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The PolyU Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) System Guidelines and Procedures for Using the FHSS Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) |
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The Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) for FHSS Printing and assembling of forms Distribution and collection of forms Analysis and reporting of the SFQ data Summary of the logistic arrangements for conducting the SFQ exercise Enquiry about policies and procedural guidelines An interactive tool for interpreting your SFQ score
This document explains briefly the system for collecting student feedback on teaching in the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS). Students will be requested to give their opinions on the teaching of the staff member and subject, by means of the Student Feedback Questionnaire Form (SFQ). The faculty/school-based SFQ instrument, guidelines and procedures were first developed in 2000/01 by a Faculty/School Working Party comprising one member from each of the departments in FHSS and one member from the Educational Development Centre. The system was further reviewed and revised 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 FHSS For developmental and subject improvement purposes, individual staff members may conduct a mid-semester formative evaluation on a voluntary basis by using the Mid-Semester Student Feedback Form. The Faculty SFQ Form is an integrated questionnaire assessing both the subject and the teacher, with the following two components: 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. The Faculty SFQ is designed to be used for all classroom-based teaching. Extra questions need to be included to focus on aspects pertinent to the other approaches such as web-based teaching. The Faculty SFQ is definitely not suitable for collecting feedback at the programme level, on project/thesis supervision, or practical training/clinical supervision/ fieldwork placements All FHSS full-time and part-time staff contributing a significant proportion of the total subject contact hours are required to collect feedback from students using the FHSS SFQ form. In team teaching situations, SFQ will only be administered for those staff who have contributed a minimum of one third of the subject to the same group of students. Teaching assistants and research assistants, however, are excluded from the exercise as these categories of staff would be more appropriately evaluated through other means like peer review or programme leader review. The cycle of evaluation and selection of class for feedback are as follows :
Subject leaders or teachers should liaise with the departmental SO/AO/EO to decide on the most appropriate date and time for administering the SFQ forms. 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. Printing and assembling of forms The FHSS SFQ optical-mark-read forms are available from the EDC. The departmental SO/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 FHSS 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 SO/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 for any SFQ survey, only one subject/staff member should be evaluated in each 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 an envelope which should immediately be sealed, signed, and returned to the departmental SO/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.
Analysis and reporting of the SFQ data The EDC will be responsible for analysing and reporting the SFQ data. They will produce two reports for each class-set of SFQ data collected. One report will be on the section "About the staff member"; the other will be on the section "About the subject". Individual staff member teaching the subject and the respective HoD will receive both reports. The report about the subject will be sent to the respective department for further distribution to the Programme Leader, Departmental Learning & Teaching Committee Chairpersons for programme evaluation purposes. After the examination results have been finalised, all 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. EDC will also send a summary report to the Dean. If the department has provided service teaching to students of other departments, the teaching department should also send the results of the SFQ on the subject to the departments which were serviced. Part of the SFQ results should also be released to the students. The extent and form of dissemination, however, will be determined by the individual departments. For the mid-semester formative evaluation, the staff member concerned is responsible for summarising and analysing the data collected. The feedback gathered should be restricted to the staff member concerned although programme committees should encourage staff to share the information gathered from the evaluation for subject/programme improvements. Ways in which SFQ feedback will be used for developmental and judgmental purposes For developmental purposes: To make the SFQ process more proactive and developmental, teachers will be given the opportunity to supplement background and contextual information, and to analyse and reflect on the results and devise action plans on the basis of the SFQ results. Towards this end, a SFQ Administration Form, a Teaching Context Form and an Analysis Form have been designed for use in the SFQ exercise alongside with the Faculty SFQ Form. The Teaching Context Form and Analysis Form are optional components of the overall SFQ process. By making the SFQ more developmental and less judgmental, the survey results could then be made more open to staff for teaching improvement and subject/programme development purposes; and to students for providing them feedback on the subject evaluation. For judgmental purposes: SFQ results must not be used independently and singly in appraising teaching performance. It is strongly recommended that any appraisal judgement should be based on at least two pieces of evidence thus avoiding any undue judgmental emphasis on SFQ scores. Adoption of a portfolio approach in appraising teaching quality would also ensure a more comprehensive and balanced judgement as other kinds of feedback like peer review and other evidences of teaching quality would also be taken into account. When making judgement on the basis of SFQ scores, it must be understood that the figures are not absolutely objective and precise. SFQ scores should be interpreted together with other relevant information such as teaching context and the trend of SFQ results. It is suggested that in the longer term, trend results, (i.e., an overall composite mean score of the staff concerned over time) could be incorporated in the SFQ report to enhance the reliability of the results and facilitate comparisons. It would also be desirable for the Faculty to come up with a percentile norm in future that could be used for reference. Summary of the logistic arrangements for conducting the SFQ exercise Before the administration of SFQ Staff suggest date, time and place for administering the SFQ. When SFQ is administered Departmental general office staff assemble the SFQ forms, administer the forms to students, and send the SFQ Administration Form and completed SFQ forms to the EDC for data analysis and reporting. After finalisation of examination results The EDC generates and distributes the SFQ reports to the various parties concerned, as shown below. Staff, upon receiving the reports, may complete, on an optional basis, 2 copies of the Teaching Context Form and Analysis Form, and send a copy each to the Department Head and the respective Programme Leader.
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 revised FHSS SFQ should be addressed to the respective Chairperson of the Departmental Learning & Teaching Committee, or directly to the Dean of FHSS when faculty-level decisions are warranted. The EDC assists the Faculty/School in processing and reporting the SFQ results. Help is 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 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 An interactive tool for interpreting your SFQ score
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