BlogQuality assurance
Satisfaction is not the same as quality (and that is no reason to ignore students)
Seven of the thirteen people I spoke with raised it themselves: a satisfied student is not automatically a student who gets good education. And yet the student's view is indispensable. How do you deal with that?
In quality assurance a tension keeps coming back. On one hand, student feedback is the most direct source you have on how education is experienced. On the other, the people who work with it say themselves that satisfaction measures something other than quality.
“Student questionnaires show their satisfaction, that is something other than the educational quality being good.”
Why the difference matters
A student can be satisfied because the course was pleasant and the exam not too hard. A student can be dissatisfied with something that turned out to be good for them. So satisfaction says something about the experience, not automatically about what someone has learned or the quality of the programme.
“You can have very satisfied students, while it actually isn't sufficient.”
But the student's view counts in full
This is the nuance I learned the most from. That satisfaction isn't quality doesn't mean students don't know what good education is. One of the interviewees pushed back hard against any reasoning that dismisses students as incompetent judges.
“To say that students don't know what quality of education is… Students really know very well.”
Students are the only ones who experience education from the inside. Their judgement is a valid source. It's just not the only one.
How you then use it
- Read the why, not only the number. A score says something is going on. The open answers say what. That's where the information you can act on sits.
- Put it next to other sources. Study results, observations, conversations with teachers and the programme committee complete the picture.
- Be modest in your conclusions. Say what students experience, and leave the judgement on quality to the conversation with your team.
- Use it to start a conversation. A theme with counts and quotes is a good reason to talk with teachers about what is going on.
This is qualitative research among thirteen people. It shows how they think about it, not how the whole sector does.