Education Research Report
In 2008 USU Students’ Association at Unitec conducted a research project looking into the quality of education at Unitec. Students from a variety of courses, ages and ethnicities spoke up to tell it how it was in their programme of study.
Some of the results were alarming and the findings highlighted a number of issues around assessments and assignments, lecturer approachability and communication, issues of teaching practice and students being made to feel stupid.
The research conducted found that some students were waiting far too long for their assignments to be handed back. “We hand in assignments and when you get your results back…like, I waited a year and a half to get one paper’s results back… and it’s kind of frustrating” said one student.
Other students reported that there was not enough feedback given with assignment results: “I think a lot of the lecturers are really slack in the marking process, just kind of like: oh shit, don’t want to do it but it’s part of their job. They’ll turn up to class but they don’t want to do the after stuff, and it’s the after stuff that we learn from, so I think we’ve been kind of ripped off.”
A student who has lecturers who are not prepared for their classes told USU that “Some of the lecturers need a bit of a kick up the butt in getting themselves prepared. There are certain lecturers who literally come to class with nothing prepared, nothing ready to go, and no notes.”
USU was concerned by the findings of this research and came up with recommendations to Unitec to help solve these issues and decrease the amount of student complaints. USU put seventeen recommendations to Unitec’s Academic Board (the place where all major decisions about academic issues at Unitec are made) on the 25th of November. Ten of the recommendations were passed, seven recommendations were adopted in principle and will be finalised early next year.
The achievements made so far, and which will continue next year, because of the student voice contained within the report, signal a really positive step in terms of Unitec recognising its responsibility to students. There will be continual updates on the progress of USU’s Quality Education Project in 2009 and rest assured that USU is taking an avid interest in the quality of your education.
Click here to read the summary of recommendations
Click here to read a full copy of the Quality Education Report