Self-evaluation of students’ educational experience was an essential part of college quality improvement systems. Colleges carried out self-evaluation at subject level and college level in a number of ways. At subject level, it was common for self-evaluation to be based on review of the individual programmes that were offered within that subject area. HMIE reviews found that colleges used a wide range of mechanisms that allowed learners to contribute indirectly to self-evaluation by expressing their views on their experience in college. These included questionnaires, focus groups, contributions at programme committee meetings and staff-student liaison meetings at various levels.
The HMIE review of care at Aberdeen College in 2004 noted that:
They (staff) used feedback from students gathered from questionnaires, focus groups and student representatives to contribute to self-evaluation.
At West Lothian College the HMIE review of sport and leisure in 2004 observed that:
Twice yearly the section organised an innovative self-evaluation event, which involved all staff and student representatives. Staff provided students with a variety of opportunities to feed back on the quality of provision and used student questionnaires to evaluate units. Students were encouraged to feed back views on the quality of learning and teaching.
However, learners were not often directly involved in self-evaluation at subject or section level because there was not usually a forum that involved students and staff at this level. Learners’ most evident contribution to self-evaluation at subject level was through the system of course representation and attendance at programme committee meetings. The extent of these contributions depended on the extent to which students participated in programme committee meetings and were able to work with staff to identify strengths and weaknesses. It also depended on whether students were given the opportunity to see and comment on annual programme reports or their equivalent. College approaches to student involvement in reporting varied, but the schedule for completion of annual reports, with reports being completed in late summer or early autumn in most colleges, worked against any real involvement by learners. As a result, the influence of students on self-evaluation of subject areas was almost always indirect, being mediated through staff.
On occasion, students were involved in self-evaluation exercises as members of college committees working on specific aspects of college operations. For example, one college had carried out a self-evaluation exercise on race relations and this had involved the student member of the equal opportunities group. Student members of college boards of management had access to all self-evaluation papers that were presented to their boards but, overall, students did not normally have significant opportunities to participate in or comment on self-evaluation at subject or college level.
Learners had a number of opportunities to give their views on learning and teaching, including programme committee meetings and in responses to questionnaires. Over the past few years, programme teams have given greater attention to the discussion of learning and teaching and contributions from students could inform those discussions. In one college where peer observation of lessons was a normal part of the quality improvement arrangements, the member of staff observing the lesson asked for the views of learners after the lesson. As noted earlier, another college used focus groups to help evaluate learning and teaching. However, the lack of fully informed and evaluative discussion of learning and teaching was reported in a number of recent HMIE reviews. Most students had not been involved in any detailed discussion of learning and teaching with their tutors. In part, this was because they lacked the experience to participate well in such a discussion or were too diffident to engage directly with their tutors. However, staff did not give sufficient encouragement to students to engage in this area of discussion. The whole-college questionnaires used by colleges covered a number of themes that related to learning and teaching but the information gained from these was not very informative for staff evaluating this aspect of their own provision in programme committees or individually. End-of-unit questionnaires by individual teaching staff, which were more helpful in this regard, were not used consistently across colleges.
Students were represented on college boards of management and often on academic boards, but they were not widely involved directly in decision making, except in matters that were regarded as the responsibility of the students’ association. However, students did have indirect influence over decisions that were reached by college staff, for example, through their comments at programme committee meetings, focus groups or responses to questionnaires. The student representatives on college boards of management were able to be present when major decisions on finance, estates and planning were made by the board and this helped to inform students about the background to decisions. However, most students did not think student members of boards exerted much influence at this level.