Student's Cognizance About Evaluation Process: A Neglected Area

Abstract

Student Feedback to evaluate teacher performance and administrative facilities is imperative to create a good learning climate and maintain quality in educational environment. It is a neglected area in many countries though it weighs much in quality academic institutions worldwide. This study identifies the challenges and opportunities from student's perspective about the utilization and impact of the student feedback. It is a qualitative exploratory study conducted with forty undergraduate medical students. Data was collected through Focus Group Discussions. The findings revealed that the students understand the purpose of feedback however they had concerns about the effective utilization of the findings of feedback. Due to the lack of implementation from faculty and administration, students were less interested to provide genuine feedback. They believed that the evaluation findings are not considered to improve the system; therefore, some students were not interested in filling feedback forms accurately. The assumption that the student feedback is a neglected area was reinforced because faculty and administration are not complying with the teacher evaluations. Due to the lack of adherence to data protection and privacy policies, teachers and administrative staff influence student feedback and express biases against the students.