10.7 Using Student Feedback

We will get student feedback and comments whether or not we want it. Some will be through formal channels, some through casual commmentary, and some will be through third party sites or social media. You cannot avoid it. They will supply it solicited or unsolicited.

Some feedback will be very useful and some will not be.

Some feedback will be think fast and knee jerk reactions, and some will be think slow and be reasoned and well thought out (Kahneman 2011).

As a responsible, accountable professional, you will need to know how to deal with feedback, perform customer-relationship-management, and deal with it. If they give feedback, they will expect to get a response. They will expect to see a change. These might be unreasonable expectations, but they will exist. They will expect to have a voice and have it listened to. It is your job to manage this and be able to explain what is accurate, what is not, what is reasonable to change, what is not, what will change, what will not, and what the expected results will be of the change. This has to be communicated in a way that shows respect and appreciation for the feedback.

All feedback is good; to a point. Feedback can confirm, but you can really use feedback that tells you something new, something you do not get from other sources. There is value in all feedback and it can be intel on what is happening and how the class feels. Just because you do not like the feedback, or you do not like the way it is voiced, it does not mean that it is 'bad' feedback. All feedback tells a story. These expectations of student involvement have been increasing over the decades and it is not reasonable or feasible to wish them away. If you simply dismiss student feedback or talk at the students without talking with the students, you stand a very real chance of alienating the student body and creating a us-them mindset.

Here are some thoughts about the students providing feedback...

• They say that the human brain is still developing into the mid 20's. We need to take that into account when reviewing and interpreting student feedback. Best not to assume full emotional maturity in all cases; some will be very mature, some will not be. If they have been 'hurt' recently, expect them to react accordingly.

• Some students will be self-aware. Others not so much. Some will hold themselves accountable for doing what a good student should do, others will not.
• We need to recognize that the students probably do not know much about actual learning and the learning process unless they are in a program that includes cognitive science.
• They might not understand the intent of any poll/survey, what the poll/survey will be used for, why the question is being asked, what the question/language really means, and what baseline to use.
• There will be false positive and false negatives in the results. As well as some good stuff to think about, take action on.
• There might be Social Comparison bias in the answers, and there might be bias based on recent events (e.g., the last assessment, mid-term) if the student is not getting what they want, what they expect, what they feel entitled to get. See Kahneman et al. (2021) for a good discussion on bias.
• It is unlikely that the students have been provided instruction on how to evaluate or how to provide feedback evaluate or how to provide feedback.
• The students might not understand (or agree with) the course description, and what the instructor is mandated to teach etc.
• The students may not be aware of certain methods and how they are used in the moment with later results; they might not see the long game.
• The students might be using different expectations and criteria for what is fair, what the instructor is expected to do, how the students are supposed to be treated.
• Not all students are worthy of being listened to. All will think that they are, but that is a fantasy. Luckily, some are. Unfortunately, it is not possible sort this out and everyone will have their say.

Here are our suggestions for how to process and react to student feedback...

• Listen to all, believe none; until you triagulate, gather evidence. Do not confuse opinions with facts and empirical evidence. Do not confuse symptoms with the underlying problem.
• Be objective and take the above points into account. Unless they have been trained and have a certain degree of expertise, do not expect them to give you 'professional' grade feedback. Not their problem. The system made them do it. You are the adult in the room and you will need to develop a mature perspective about what to do, how to react. Does not mean that you not feel hurt or that you will like it, but it is part of the job. Sorry.
• Do not summarily dismiss any feedback out of hand. Consider what might have caused the feedback to occur. Use the think slow paradigm and not think fast (Kahneman 2011). Depending on what is going on, a full cause and effect analysis might be warranted with the full nine yards, fishbones et al.
• Be aware of any recent classroom dynamics or course events that might create a temporal bias. For example, it is foolish to think that course evaluations are independent of marks and student expectations. If a mid-term was just handed back with less than expected results, the students will also give you less then expected results. If a group of students felt mistreated (for any number of reasons), this can also poison the class situation. For example, if 25% of the students are up on academic integrity charges, do not expect that your course evaluations will be stellar. You cannot do anything about this, but you might see the result in the data. If there is a 'hate on', the students will often just check off every box in the most extreme column. Just go down the column and not even think about the question. They have been hurt and they are lashing out. If you can get anonymized, individual data, you can look for these patterns.
• Just like when a paper reviewer tears one off you and your immediate reaction is @#*()@*&)(, what an idiot, they just don't get it, you need to think that perhaps it was the way you communicated, the way you set it up; the actual work might be ok, but it has to be explained better. With student feedback, you need to think the same way. Was there something you did or say that did not explain something properly, and it is just a case of framing, explaining? You did not sell it!
• Think about any changes in the status quo for the students. For example, a new method you are using, new technology, new tools, new textbook, etc. Anything new or different in the status quo will likely have a burn in period for both the student and the instructor. If there is feedback related to these topics, you should sit back and dig in; the students might be right. You did not introduce it, explain the value-add, do a good transition, deal with the learning curve, have bumps during the process.
• Try to separate out the feedback into useful categories. For example, the content, the methods, the classroom delivery and management, assumptions about what the students should have been able to handle, but did not, labs/tutorials, teaching assistants, etc. If you do not sort and classify, you will not see patterns and you will not have a focus for thinking about the feedback, what it suggests, and what you should do.

• Summarize and then work with a buddy, someone who has helped you, understands the class, perhaps even observed you teaching. Having a second set of eyes and ears can be very useful. If the issues are big enough, see if you can get an observer, helper for the next offering. This will help if you are doing a significant change in response to the feedback.
• Discuss the feedback with your teaching assistant(s). They can often provide deeper insights; depending on how you use them. We like it when our assistants sit in during lectures and are full participants in labs, tutorials, and help sessions. We also like to have weekly or bi-weekly chats with the TAs about what is working, what is not working, assumptions about the students, etc. If this is done, many issues can be caught before they become big issues.
• Try to understand the distribution of the responses as well. For example a bipolar response tells you something about a possible bias or subtle condition. The standard deviation is also important to know, as is the coefficient of variance. A simple 'score' or average really does not provide the level of feedback you need to understand the score.
• When responding to the class (and this should be done), do not be defensive or be emotional. Admit any failures and discuss how things can be made better, ask for advice from the students. It is not likely that the students are perfect, but is also not likely that you are. Know what you do not know, know what you do well and know what you can improve. Use the feedback and debriefing as a learning moment to discuss pedagogy, assumptions, constraints. But do not simply dismiss and say that you know better and that is it. On some points you can use humor, discuss your own time as a student but remember that by definition you were probably not 'average' and do not project your experiences and abilities on the class without careful thought.
• Have a plan and control mechanism for any changes you made in response to the feedback, immediate or in the next offering. You should have it thought through, including how will you know if the change is making a difference.
• Have a debriefing moment at the end of term to discuss the feedback during the term, the changes made and dialog with the class about the success/failure of the adjustments, what else to do in the next offering.

Further reading

• Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Kahneman, D., Sibony, O. and C.R. Sunstein (2021) Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Little, Brown, Spark.