Report meeting August 2006, Rome (Italy)
For Report, see pdf document here

Meeting 30 August 2006, Rome (Italy)
The pre-Forum discussion in Rome will focus on a key aspect of what can be learnt from student feedback: their changing expectations of higher education. This is particularly pertinent in the wake of the Lisbon Declaration of 2000, in which the EU's goal of giving 50% of each birth cohort an experience of higher education was announced.

The meeting will be divided into two discussion sessions. The first session will focus on identifying student expectations and how they have changed since Lisbon. The second session will focus on how student expectations can be met by our institutions.

Discussion session 1:
What have been the main changes in the expectations of students in higher education over the last six years? What do we believe will become important in the next few years?

Discussion session 2:
How can we meet current and new expectations? Should we do so? If not, what should be done to integrate students well into higher education?

Report meeting August 2005, Riga (Latvia)
One clear area of interest that was raised during the meeting in Barcelona in 2004, was student feedback, and how and why it is used. Follow-up discussions in Riga, in 2005, focused on how we (as practitioners in particular institutional and national contexts) might have an impact on policy towards the collection of feedback at the institutional and national level. This focus determined the two main areas of discussion.

First, break-out groups discussed the purpose of collecting feedback on the student experience. Overall, participants argued that the collection of feedback from students, either through questionnaire surveys or through focus groups helps institutions to understand their experience and needs as well as taking account of the views of the major stakeholders in higher education. More practically, it provides senior management with a valuable information tool to assist in improving the quality of the student experience in all its aspects. In the longer term, collecting student feedback makes benchmarking possible, both longitudinally and externally and is a method of monitoring the effectiveness of specific interventions. Furthermore, a regular process of student feedback helps in accreditation/external reporting.

The discussion turned to issues relating to feedback mechanisms. There are several technical issues relating to collection of feedback. Surveys do not always get at the small but important problems that come and go before there is a chance to raise them in questionnaire surveys. Where questionnaires are used, they need to be relevant to the students. There is also a very practical problem in some of the institutions represented at the SIG with the size of any questionnaire that is used.

A corollary to how we collect feedback from students is how we can successfully bring all 'stakeholders' in higher education into the feedback process. Participants agreed that there is a need for a variety of different incentives to encourage engagement. For staff and students, the incentives are different. For students, there is a need for appropriate conditions for completing questionnaires, such as enough working computers, and they are often concerned about the confidentiality of their responses. It was argued, too, that engagement often depends on students feeling empowered by the process and that they are actively listened to. For staff, the process has to be transparent and non-recriminatory. For both groups, there have to be real incentives to take the time to take part. Experience suggests that students respond to what one participant referred to as 'chocolate', or rewards such as the opportunity to win a computer, whereas staff is more likely to respond if the process has a direct impact on promotion or salary.

Participants agreed that the process depends on mutual trust and respect but that different stakeholders have different needs and problems. Above all, the collection of student feedback must become embedded in the institutional culture for it to be taken seriously by all stakeholders. It must be regular, acted upon and the process must be transparent.
James Williams and Uulkje de Jong, SIG coordinators 2005

Report meeting 2004, Barcelona (Spain)
During the EAIR Forum in Barcelona, the first meeting of the Special Interest Group (SIG) Student Affairs/Student Experience was held. Over thirty people gathered to discuss the issues relevant to starting this SIG.

During the meeting it was suggested that the focus of the SIG would be 'the student experience' rather than 'student affairs', as this would encompass non-academic support services and quality enhancement issues. It was also suggested that the group should develop an interactive electronic network system, through the EAIR website. This first meeting agreed that students should not be involved in the SIG as it was felt that this would confuse the purpose of the group. It was argued that the network should be open to administrators as well as researchers. More ideas needed to be developed, either at a separate workshop early 2005 or through discussions via e-mail.

The SIG would concentrates on three aspects of the student experience:

• access: widening participation, and student retention;
• quality enhancement: focusing on student satisfaction and student ratings of teaching;
• factors bearing on success of students: integration, active participation (in learning and institutional governance), qualifications learned and later needed in the workplace.
• It was agreed that international comparative studies should also have a place within the group.
• It was agreed that Uulkje the Jong (UvA) would be the chair and James Williams (University of Central England in Birmingham) its secretary.