Pulse surveys! Good or bad?

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_link_target=”_self” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]A lot of students don’t think their comments have any impact on their units. Some have seen their lecturers/tutors scoff at the negative feedback.

QUT Guild President Vinnie Batten started his Facebook post by pointing out that “QUT has some of the lowest response rates to evaluation surveys (Pulse, Insight, etc) in the country.”

“You can also email through to evaluations@qut.edu.au if you want to share your constructive views directly to QUT,” Mr Batten said.

Here’s what students said.

Do the surveys have any impact?
The most common concern from students was that their negative reviews of units had no impact for future students.

“I always fill out the survey and nothing changes and they don’t provide survey results. At the company I work for, they publish results quarterly.”

“There isn’t a clear feedback loop for the surveys. You fill one out, send it in, and that’s it. No changes are visible to you because you leave the unit or move on to new content.”

“The results and actions of those surveys is kept behind closed doors the majority of the time. Sometimes I make an effort to follow up what happened in which I’m usually disappointed to find little or no action was taken.”

Lecturers didn’t care
This point is alarming. At least nine comments gave examples of teaching staff reading out negative feedback to their students and not taking it seriously.

Do you think you’ve been treated unfairly? Email studentrights@qutguild.com. Do you want to expose something? Tip off GLASS here.

“We had a lecturer laugh off all the bad feedback (about him going away for 3 weeks at the start of semester with no fill in) in our lecture. This makes me not see the point in doing them, if our opinion is going to be laughed at, why bother?”

“Have had a lecturer spend an hour of a 2 hour lecture ranting about how people didn’t give nice reviews of the subject.”

“I’ve done Pulse once, gave feedback suited to the worst class I’ve ever taken. Had my assignment reevaluated and marked down a few days later. Coincidence? I think not.”

No incentive/Too busy to care
This response was also quite common. Understandably, filling out surveys is the last thing on your to-do list when you have multiple assessments and exams to study for.

“I try and make an effort because I think it’s important that dodgy lecturers get their shit together and good lecturers get recognised, but surveys are easy to forget about when assessment is piling up.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Liam Blair
Liam Blair
Articles: 34

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