Anish Bagga presented the findings, best practices,and potential consequences of an ineffective feedback system and how Unitu has discovered a great way to close the feedback loop. Delivered at the Learning and teaching practice experts group on 22 April 2015

1. Engaging students by closing the
feedback loop
www.unitu.co.uk
BY ANISH BAGGA

2. ?

3. What does ‘closing the feedback loop’ mean?
Why has it become so important?

4. Students
provide feedback.
Staff show students
how they’ve acted on it.
Closing the
feedback loop

5. …devise effective ways of communicating to
students when and where their feedback has
been acted upon…This is often referred to as
'closing the feedback loop’.
“
”QAA, Chapter B5: Student Engagement

6. ✓ Students must be able to raise issues that are important to them;
✓ There must be an assessment of what is important as well as
satisfactory;
✓ There must be an explicit action cycle with clear structures for
delegating responsibility for change and for providing feedback
on action to students.
Lecky & Neill (2012) - Quantify quality: The importance of student feedback

7. Rowley (1995) - “Student feedback: a shaky foundation for quality assurance.”
Gathering relevant, representative and useful student opinion is a
necessary part of the quality assurance process.
“ ”

8. CLOSING THE FEEDBACK LOOP WILL BUILD
STRONG ACADEMIC COMMUNITIES OF
TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY.
WE BELIEVE….

9. CLOSING THE FEEDBACK LOOP IS RARE
Harvey (1999) - “The sense in satisfaction.”
“ ”

10. Powney (1998) - “Closing the Loop: The impact of student feedback on students’ subsequent learning.”
“ ”
There is a degree of cynicism among students as they rarely get any information
about the consequences of feedback and this, in turn, can contribute to the
difficulty of getting students to engage in the process of quality assurance.

11. How does your institution close the feedback loop?
What challenges are you facing?

12. Electing more
student reps
Hacking their
own solutions
Creating more
surveys
Hiring more
specialist staff

13. SURVEYS

14. SRS

16. DISENGAGED STUDENTS

17. How can we overcome these challenges?

19. Dept. X Dept.Y
Faculty
University Wide
Dept. X Dept.Y
Faculty
TIMELY. RELEVANT. PERSONAL. CONTINOUS. INFORMATIVE

22. Students and staff collectively raise and resolve issues in
real time.

23. Students can give feedback and
raise issues at any time.

24. Reps can provide representative and
unbiased feedback to staff.

25. Staff can instantly show students
how they’ve acted on their issues.

26. Management can benchmark student satisfaction across
departments at any time during the academic year.
BETA

27. Student engagement
The environment
Representational structures
Training and ongoing support
Informed conversations
Valuing the student contribution
Monitoring, review and continuous improvement

28. Engaging students by closing the feedback loop
(Case studies)

31. Students provides
feedback
Students engage
with feedback
Staff act on
feedback

32. Student Engagement

33. Thank you
anish@unitu.co.uk