Comparing Lecturer-Administered and Quality Assurance Office-Administered Student Evaluation Reflections in an Agricultural Module: the case of a Rural-Based University

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-521-8_5How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Student evaluations; module reflections; higher education; pedagogy

Abstract

Staff members are often denied the chance to conduct their own evaluations of teaching and learning (T&L) due to fear of objectivity, and many agree. The process of waiting for an institution’s Quality Assurance Office (QAO) to do the evaluation is always lengthy, delayed, and fewer modules are done per year. Thus, this study compared the results of T&L assessments evaluations by students administered online by QAO and the lecturer (StaffEva) around the same time. Questionnaires were administered online by the Quality Assurance Office (via Microsoft Forms) and the lecturer (via Moodle), for students (57) in a fourth year Applied Animal Nutrition module. The QAO evaluation was anonymous, while the lecturer’s version requested student numbers for participation tracking as discussed in class. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and significance tests (Chi-square) to compare responses across evaluation categories. The results showed that 4 questions (Module relevance to students’ qualification, comprehensive student guide was available, module pitched at right NQF level and student module responsibility clearly communicated) out of the 6 questions for module content evaluations were not different (P>0.05) between QAO and StaffEva. In terms of the Module preparations evaluations, 7 out of 13 questions evaluated were not different (P>0.05) while only 1 out of the 6 questions was different between StaffEva and QAO for assessment methods. It was also observed that the module content, lecturer preparations and assessment methods evaluations by students seemed to be more objective in StaffEva than QAO evaluations. Students objectively in the question on “What would you like to change about the module?” was more informative in StaffEva than QAO. The results from these findings showed that discussing the need for and importance of T&L reflections with students would reduce the fear of objectivity hence encouraging staff own evaluations.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - F. N. Fon
AU  - M. Sibanda
AU  - T. A. Ndimande
AU  - N. Z. Khumalo
AU  - H. C. Zwane
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/29
TI  - Comparing Lecturer-Administered and Quality Assurance Office-Administered Student Evaluation Reflections in an Agricultural Module: the case of a Rural-Based University
BT  - Proceedings of The Focus Conference (TFC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 43
EP  - 61
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-521-8_5
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-521-8_5
ID  - Fon2025
ER  -