Obtaining Impactful Feedback from Students: A Continuous Quality Improvement Approach to Enhance the Quality of Students’ Feedback.

ABSTRACT

Academic institutions collect student feedback to improve their curriculum and teaching quality. At the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (YLLSoM), National University of Singapore (NUS), the feedback is also used to disburse funds to clinical teaching sites as well as to make decisions on faculty performance. There are studies on the benefits and uses of measurement tools (e.g. student ratings) to evaluate university courses, however, studies evaluating the process of effecting changes to the system are few. In this study, the authors discuss the limitations of the student feedback system/processes and the way new changes were instituted to overcome these limitations at YLLSoM, NUS. This study highlights the importance of constantly reviewing the feedback mechanism to obtain better inputs for improving the learning environment. Our findings are particularly useful for the training of clinical teachers in Asian and new medical schools, who can learn from our strengths to meet the required standards.