Unit Surveys
Unit Surveys (formerly known as Unit Evaluation Questionnaires) are part of the University's commitment in the 'Strategic Vision 2020' document to listen to students and to seek annual improvements in student satisfaction. The surveys invite students to say how far they agree or disagree with a number of statements and free text responses to questions about the unit and the lecturer, for every unit they study. The questions are derived from research in several countries. Schools may add a number of additional School-specific questions if they wish, and student are invited to add free text comments. See 'Examples of Unit Survey questions' below.
Toolkit for Unit Survey Promotion
In collaboration with Students Communications and Marketing, promotional material has been produced for Schools to use to promote Unit Surveys. This material includes posters, screensavers and digital signage, and an email digital signature. The material can be found, below, in the Toolkit for promotion:
Guidance for increasing student engagement in Unit Surveys
Reporting data from online surveys
The reporting data for the online surveys are available from EvaluationKIT. To view School/Faculty-level reports, you will need to be set up as an EvaluationKIT Survey Administrator. Please contact unitsurveys@manchester.ac.uk if you need Administrator access.
Supporting documents for Schools for online process
- Guidance note for lecturers/tutors to encourage students to complete the online questionnaire
- How To: Access online Unit Surveys through Blackboard (students)
- How To: Access real-time response rates for Unit Surveys by Survey Administrators
- How To: Access real-time response rates for Unit Surveys in EvaluationKIT (academic staff)
- How To: Access Unit Survey reporting data for Survey Administrators
- How To: Access Unit Survey reporting data from EvaluationKIT (academic staff)
- How To: Give students access to online Unit Surveys within Blackboard
- How To: Use EvaluationKIT mobile app to access Unit Surveys for students
- Explanation of how the EvaluationKIT mobile app works
Examples of Unit Survey questions
Examples of the standard University questions found on the Unit Surveys are as follows:
Main 3 questions (each to be answered using a 1-5 Likert scale)
Q1 Overall, I would rate this unit as being excellent
Q2 The feedback that I received on my work was helpful
Q3 This unit was well organised
Lecturer Question (to be answered using a 1-5 Likert scale)
Prof/Dr. X's teaching was excellent
Lecturer Comment Question (free-text response)
What aspect of Prof/Dr. X's approach to teaching best helped your learning?
Comment Questions (free-text response)
Please provide details of what you valued about this unit.
Please provide details of what you think could be improved on this unit.
Results from the surveys are reviewed during the annual Annual Performance Review of each Faculty. The process seeks to identify units that achieve high levels of satisfaction so that the staff concerned can be congratulated and their achievements disseminated for the purposes of enhancement. The process also seeks to identify units that achieve low levels of satisfaction and to receive assurance from Faculties and Schools that the causes of dissatisfaction have been identified and are being remedied. This process is designed to enhance overall levels of student satisfaction, which will be monitored from year to year. Unit surveys are not designed to evaluate lecturers as such.
Unit surveys and the more general student satisfaction surveys are overseen by the Vice-President (Teaching, Learning and Students).
The University's Planning Support Office also provides information from student feedback received via the National Student Survey, the International Student Barometer and the University of Manchester Student Satisfaction Survey on their website.
If you have queries about the unit survey process, please contact unitsurveys@manchester.ac.uk.