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As the primary audience for any course, students have a specific perspective on quality of instruction.  Their views can be powerful in helping instructors and departments understand how students experience the class.  The Student Voice section of QTI in a Box suggests approaches to collect, analyze, and report student perspectives.  

When departments use structured tools and processes to collect, analyze, and evaluate using narrative data, it allows more consistent evaluation for each instructor over time and equitable application of evaluation for all members of the department.  

QTI Recommended Student-Voice Tools

QTI strongly recommends using multiple forms of collecting student data on teaching quality: 

• In-class Student Data Collection
  • Focus groups
  • Surveys 
  • Lab group/Studio interviews/observations
• Student letters. 

To reduce the burden of uptake on departments, QTI has developed these tools to streamline ways to collect and analyze student-voice evidence.

• Classroom Surveys/Focus Group Data Collection: Overview  
  • Classroom Survey & Focus Group Process  
  • Sample Protocol for Collecting Student-Voice Evidence from a Research Group or Studio Setting  
• Student Letter Requests: Guidelines & Template  
• Coding and Analyzing Narrative Evidence: Actionable vs. Descriptive  

FCQs

Faculty Course Questionnaires (FCQs) in evaluation of instruction.  To help departments make the best possible use of FCQ data, A&S offers suggestions for using quantitative FCQ data:

• Identify key FCQ questions that align with faculty and/or unit goals and analyze those responses.  
• QTI has created a crosswalk of FCQ items and A&S priority domains, Scholarly, Goal Oriented, and Inclusive; use this crosswalk to better understand classroom patterns.
• Triangulate FCQ data with evidence from other student voice sources.
• Design and deliver department-specific FCQ questions to support targeted data collection.

FCQ qualitative scores can be a rich data source, both for evaluation of instruction and for continuous improvement.  Regent policy leaves it to the faculty member, PUEC, and/or department to capture this data and decide how to share it as a multiple measure.  Using simple, structured approaches, qualitative FCQ data can be analyzed quickly, consistently, and complement quantitative FCQ data.

• Aligning FCQs with QTI Domains  
• QTI Practical, Mixed-Methods Guide to Use FCQs as a Measure of Teaching Effectiveness  
• History New FCQ Template  
• Teaching Quality Framework Guidance on using FCQs  

Note on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:  Some student-voice evidence could reveal bias, implicit or even explicit.  For example, Student Evaluation of Teaching instruments, e.g., FCQs, have been shown to frequently and consistently yield lower scores for women (Miller & Chamberlin, 2000) and minoritized faculty (Reinsch, Goltz, & Hietapelto, 2020).   Remaining mindful of and developing evaluation strategies to mitigate potential harm can support departments to deliver more equitable evaluation of instruction.