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21 September 2021

proven, with the high rate of obtaining SET, the willingness of the lecturers to absorb the students’
voice into the process of improving their teaching activities.

Although in the past, SET was obtained, there was no clear evidence available with the IQAC of the

actions taken based on the feedback. Further, the responses received for SET obtained by the

departments were not analysed centrally. The IQAC took the initiative to centralize the monitoring of
the SET process which is carried out at the departmental level. A study conducted by Wong and Moni

(2014) to examine clinical teachers’ perception of the SET process revealed that most of the teachers
perceive SET to be a part of a quality assurance process. Further, the literature highlights the

importance of a central authority implementing the SET, where SET is a core element in university

internal management systems to fulfil quality assurance purposes (Anderson 2006; Marsh 2007; Shah
and Nair 2012). With the centralization, IQAC encourages the departments to identify the lapses in

their teaching and report the actions taken to improve teaching/learning activities. It was a good
exercise for the departments to think of the measures within their context. Further, the process leads to

the conduct of SET throughout the year evenly and prevents excessive and frequent feedback from

students to minimize student exhaustion leading to poor response rates and unreliable feedback.

References

Anderson G. (2006) Assuring quality/resisting quality assurance: Academics’ responses to ‘quality’ in
some Australian universities, Quality in Higher Education, 12(2), p161-173.

Arubayi E.A. (1987) Improvement of instruction and teacher effectiveness: are student ratings reliable

and valid? Higher Education, 16(3), p267-278.

Divoky J.J. and Rothermel M.A. (1989) Improving teaching using systematic differences in student

course ratings, Journal of Education for Business, 65(3), p116-119.

Flutter J. (2007) Teacher development and pupil voice. The Curriculum Journal, 18(3), p343-354.

Harvey L. (2011) The nexus of feedback and improvement, Student Feedback , Chandos Publishing,
p3-26.

Kwan K.P. (1999) How fair are student ratings in assessing the teaching performance of university

teachers? Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 24(2), p181-195.

Marsh H.W. (2007) Students’ evaluations of university teaching: Dimensionality, reliability, validity,

potential biases and usefulness, The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education: An
evidence-based perspective, Springer, Dordrecht, p319-383.

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