Students’ Perception: Student Feedback Online (SuFO) in Higher Education

Abstract

Students Feedback Online (SuFO) is an online system that is used to evaluate the overall teaching and learning components in terms of lecturer's quality assurance and performance, content and infrastructure. In view of the importance of SuFO, a reliable instrument is deemed necessary for the evaluation of students' perception of a lecturer's quality assurance and performance, content and infastructure in higher education in Malaysia. The objective of this study is to investigate the perception of students towards SuFO survey. This study was conducted at one of the campus of a public university in the centre region of Sarawak, Malaysia using a survey to investigate the perception of students towards SuFO survey. A total of 158 full time diploma students completed a questionnaire about views on the perceptions of students towards SuFO survey. The questionnaire had high internal consistency whereby the alpha value reported to be 0.863 for 30 items. Analysis of the students' perception by gender (on independent samples t-test) showed that there is a significant difference in mean perception rating between male and female students (p<0.05). Analysis of the students' perception by semester (using ANOVA (analysis of variance)) showed that there is a significant difference in mean perception rating across different semesters (p<0.05). Analysis of the students' perception by ethnicity (using ANOVA) revealed no significant difference in mean perception rating across different ethnicity. In conclusion, this study has presented evidence that male students and female students rated different with respect to the perception toward SuFO survey. In fact male students rated significantly higher when compared to female students. On the other hand, students with lower parts tended to rate higher when compared to students with higher parts. It is hoped that this study offers new knowledge to the scope of research within this field and promotes further studies in countries abroad.

Importance of student feedback in improving mechanical engineering courses

“…In the early 1920s, University of Wisconsin 1 first implemented student evaluation by collecting feedback from students so that lecturers would understand students’ needs. In a traditional system of evaluation, a set of questionnaire along with a rating scheme in printed form is distributed to students at the end of a semester to seek out their comments.…”

“…13 The online system is generally used to evaluate course materials and learning and teaching strategies in terms of the lecturers’ quality assurance, performance, course content infrastructure and IT tools. 1 At Central Queensland University (CQU), an LMS called Moodle is used for this purpose. The concept of self-evaluation of course performance is for quality assurance purposes and ongoing development of the students’ learning journey.…”

“…In most cases, this happens at the end of each term/semester. 1 Student feedback has a great influence not only on quality assurance of course delivery but also on development of individual lecturer's good practices towards improving students' quality of learning by knowing each student's needs. Otani et al 2 correctly articulated that student feedback had a significant impact on transformation and modification, improvement in lecture materials, course delivery, classroom management, assessment methods and engagement and interaction with students.…”

“…In most cases, this happens at the end of each term/semester. 1 Student feedback has a great influence not only on quality assurance of course delivery but also on development of individual lecturer’s good practices towards improving students’ quality of learning by knowing each student’s needs. Otani et al.…”

Learning programming online: Influences of various types of feedback on programming performances

“…Especially, in online programming courses, repetitive failures during lessons may lead students to lose enthusiasm and interest (Law, Lee, & Yu, 2010). In this sense, students often need feedback from the instructors to perform programming tasks (Eng, Ibrahim, & Shamsuddin, 2015). Through ongoing monitoring of online learning, instructors can observe students' progress and guide them via feedback.…”