Avoiding Survey Fatigue: Alternatives to Surveys for Non-Student-Facing Teams
Engaging with students in the development of services/areas of universities that do not have direct contact with students is difficult, but does not neglect the need to pay attention to student voice. Professional Services, Managements Teams and Academic Leadership need to prioritise engaging with students in partnership as much as academic colleagues, where there are now several ways to do this beyond relying on often overused digital surveys.
In the 2020s, the ability to create, disseminate and analyse online surveys is easier than ever, where the technological efficiencies allow any staff member to potentially field high response rates without leaving their workstation. However, the Higher Education sector has seen an explosion of surveys across individual institutions and in wider-life, leading students to experience survey fatigue due to over deployment of surveys (survey bloat) at universities and colleges. With some undergraduate students experiencing as many as 60 surveys across their student journeys, there is a need to explore other routes to engage with students’ feedback, alongside universities creating processes and strategies on survey management.
This blog brings together five alternatives to surveys that non-student facing teams can use to engage students as partners in the delivery of services and support.
Option 1: Student-Staff Partnership or Co-Creation Projects
As highlighted on the resource Succeeding in Co-Creation to Enhance the Student Experience , many universities facilitate student-staff projects to focus on specific issues as a partnership team.. Working in a Student-Staff Partnership or Co-Creation project requires university staff and students to work as equals, where both partners (student and staff) bring different perspectives of the area of university activity. When beginning a Student-Staff Partnership or Co-Creation project, both parties should respect one another’s perspective, listen to each other’s ideas and contribute equally to the project (although these may be different activities).
These focused projects can take a number of forms including conducting evaluations, literature research, surveying, networking or developing new initiatives that address the broad topics mentioned above. The main purpose is to make a change to some aspect of the university that improves the experience for students, whether this is on a specific module, an aspect of a professional service, or across the whole institution. Many universities have also developed schemes of support for such practice, such as the UCL’s Change Maker Scheme or the University of Winchester’s Student Fellows Scheme.
Although the scale of a university-wide scheme may not be possible when embarking on a local student-staff partnership project, looking to recognise and support these partnerships to succeed is important. Projects can be supported by looking for ways to allocate staff with time to work with students in partnership, and to enable students to participate for payment and/or other incentives such as allocating academic credit to activities. These projects are most successful when looking at a defined area in a service or at the university, so the partnership may have tangible areas of focus.
Option 2: Student Advisory Panels
University colleagues with direct contact with students such as academics have high access to student feedback opportunities. Additionally, it has become sector practice to have some form of student-staff liaison committee where student experience items are discussed in committee format at a course level. These committees are often attended by the academic course leader, the academic course administrator, and students who are elected into their roles as ‘Student Academic Representatives’.
Non-student facing teams and Professional Services do not have similar forums as sector standard, therefore many institutions’ have created local and strategic ‘Student Advisory Panels’ . These Panels offer student membership to discuss matters relating to that area of the university, such as ‘Student-Staff Raising and Giving (RAG) Committees’ on fundraising, or ‘Student Mental Health Advisory Boards’.
Individual areas of a university can form their own advisory groups, or the university management may embark on a singular advisory committee to discuss the entire institution. This can be helpful as with cross-university strategic committees, the amount of items to discuss will be far larger, when compared to a local area of the university such as a single professional service.
There are plenty of examples from across the sector. The University of Winchester’s Vice Chancellor in 2012 initiated a Student Academic Council based on Royal Holloway’s similar practice, where the Senior Leadership Team had four meetings a year with a group of 20-30 students (including the SU full time officer team) to discuss student experience matters, from estates to food on campus. The University of Southampton have adapted a far larger scheme known as “Southampton 100” where 100 students are recruited at the start of each year to attend monthly online meetings to discuss again broad areas of the student experience.
Option 3: Student Feedback Forums
Similar to student advisory panels yet not in a reoccurring committee format, many professional service and non-student facing academic teams can run Student Feedback Forums. These are successful on university campuses that have high student footfall where staff can run one-off events to gain feedback on a certain area of the institution, such as the Library.
These events can engage high numbers of students if well marketed and linked to other activities such as Student Academic Representative schemes, as additional opportunities to give feedback. They can also be replicated online but if students are genuinely satisfied with the area of the university, or if the area of the university is ambiguous, there may be low student engagement.
Student Feedback Forums are very useful to gain student feedback during urgent times of crisis or changes to services, where many universities used these during COVID-19 to get a lot of student feedback quickly and manage student expectations.
Option 4: Feedback Exhibitions
The above options all require students to give at least an hour of their time and attend an event at a certain time, potentially in person. These come with barriers for time-poor, financially poor and less policy engaged students, and therefore sometimes creating a convenient quick feedback opportunity similar to an online survey is required.
An alternative to an online survey is a pop-up feedback event, known as a Feedback Exhibition, where students can give feedback on a university topic in reasonable detail in under 10 minutes. Feedback Exhibitions are set up like art exhibitions, in a room on campus near high foot-fall with questions asked on flip-chart paper on the walls in the room. Staff running the exhibition should both be positioned inside the room to offer guidance to students going around the feedback exhibition, as well as be positioned outside the room to draw student traffic.
As this is a fast feedback opportunity, institutions can incentivise these opportunities by offering a free refreshment to draw student traffic. These events are often reported to be fun for both students and staff and can get as high as 80 responses in an hour, being more efficient in both student and staff time than an online survey.
Option 5: GOATing (Going Out And Talking)
GOATing is old phrase used in Students’ Unions in the 2000s, to encourage student officers to get out of their officers and simply speak with students. As workplaces becomes more desk (and home) based, the opportunities to simply speak with students are becoming few and far between. The importance of non-student facing staff being able to meet and discuss with students remains critical to gain an understand of the service and education offered by the university. This thematic option simply encourages managers to support and allow their staff members time to simply go out of their offices, and have conversations with students.
Option 6: On campus voting polls
If there is just one question the professional service or non-student facing team wishes to ask, which may not warrant the time commitment or need for any of the above options, a simple voting poll can offer a quick student voice opportunity.
These are most successful when coordinated by a student catering, bar or other retain service on campus, where the customer (the student) is given a token to vote to answer a weekly question on their exit from the area. This is very similar to the charity giving questions asked in many supermarkets and offers an opportunity for quick student-feedback.
Although the data is not collected in a closed environment, it can offer a quick gauge of the student view. Having clear communication information above the voting poll is important and communicating the outcome of the last question. These can be replicated online using social media or in email signatures, however there is no control over who responds.
As Higher Education continues to become ever-increasingly student-centred, creating opportunities to engage in student feedback will remain a priority. Yet it is important to remember that students are exposed to every feedback opportunity, whether they come from a service or their course. Although service leads may reflect that they only run one survey a year, we must remember that students are exposed to every survey in the university, and therefore, there is a risk that we may collectively over survey our students creating a negative experience. As highlighted in this blog, we should be flexible to still engage in student feedback, but not bombard our students with surveys just because they are easy for us as staff.
About the author
Tom Lowe is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Portsmouth, where his research includes student engagement in the development of education, embedding employability into the curriculum and belonging. Prior to Portsmouth, Tom was the Head of Student Engagement and Employability at the University of Winchester where he led the University’s student development, internationalisation and extra-curricular opportunities, staffing and strategies. Tom was also the programme leader for the MA in Student Engagement in Higher Education at Winchester, and has served on the RAISE Committee in various roles for over eight years. Tom is experienced in the practicalities surrounding student engagement in quality assurance, learning and teaching, University governance and Students' Unions, as well as student involvement in extracurricular activities and overcoming barriers to student success through inclusive practice.
