Feedback: more than a tick box exercise
At Liverpool School of Medicine, we champion our students’ voices and ideas and strive to provide multiple ways in which they can share their feedback to drive change and continuously enhance our MBChB programme and overall student experience. We caught up with Suzie Wood from the School’s Quality Team to see how that works in practice.
The School’s Quality Team is behind many of our efforts to collect, analyse and implement student feedback on the course. This covers a wide range of aspects, from lecture content and delivery to the students’ experiences on clinical placement, or the best format for accessing support and guidance.
Suzie Wood is an Evaluation Data Analyst whose passion for all things data was first ignited while studying Computer Aided Design at Liverpool John Moores University.
“One of the projects I worked on at University involved using the Six Sigma methodology (link.) I was instantly fascinated by how using a data driven approach to process improvement can so effectively limit mistakes and save time, effort and money. From there I was hooked on data and process improvement and I have worked in many different industries to help make a difference."
Data is such a powerful tool and this is why we really do value the student feedback we receive as it provides us with the insight to be able to drive improvements.
As passionate as Suzie is about data, what she loves most about her role is the people she works with. So, what’s a typical day like for Suzie?
“My days are currently spent working from my little office (the spare room!) and meeting with my colleagues virtually over Zoom or Teams. My role is a busy one and I spend most of my time with an Excel document of some sort open, most often analysing student feedback data, which I love. I have Excel Spreadsheets for every aspect of my life, work or personal! As well as working with the Quality Team I have a toddler who also keeps me very busy outside of working hours, so my days typically involve a lot of caffeine!”
As we step into the new academic year, Suzie is looking forward to continuing to optimise the student feedback loop at the School,
“We have changed our processes a bit this year, shortening the amount of time that surveys will be open. This means that we can turn around the data and get information about how we are responding to student feedback more quickly. We want to ensure that students know we do listen, so I’m excited to make sure that this happens!”
She is keen to correct a common misconception some may have about feedback,
People can think it is just a tick box exercise. It certainly is not at the School of Medicine!
"We value student feedback massively here. We analyse feedback routinely and actively work on implementing changes based on it. Without the feedback, we wouldn’t understand what is working well and what isn’t so we really do appreciate the amount of time and effort that goes into completing surveys.”
Over the past 18 months in particular, student feedback has proved essential in implementing and evaluating new ways of teaching and connecting with staff and fellow students. As the School has moved swiftly to deliver on learning objectives, despite the challenges the pandemic has presented, it has been encouraging to see high levels of satisfaction expressed from across the year groups on key areas such as clinical teaching, case-based learning and the organisation and delivery of academic weeks.
Throughout every academic year, Year Directors work with the Quality Team and Senior Management to review student input and implement action points.
For 2020-21, this meant creating topic-specific checklists and suggested timetables to support students in their studies, providing additional quizzes and other self-assessment resources to help consolidate learning, and adapting timetables to include more of what students found most useful, delivered at the right time and in the most effective way.
Liverpool Student Doctors can find a complete overview of the main highlights and actions based on student feedback for the 20-21 academic year on the student intranet (link). Here, you can see how each year of the programme has been shaped for 2021-22, all thanks to students sharing their thoughts and experiences.
Discover more
- Browse through the main feedback areas and resulting actions shared by student doctors in the 20-21 academic year on the You said, we listened area of the student intranet (link).
- Learn more about the Quality Team and the School’s commitment to quality assurance on the student intranet (link).