"Enhancing Post-Course Feedback: Driving Meaningful Insights for Curriculum & Faculty Improvement"
The post-course feedback process at our MBA program was designed to gather valuable insights on subjects and faculty performance.
However, the process was not effectively utilised:
Students neither completed it on time nor provided meaningful responses. This lack of engagement resulted in insufficient data, limiting its impact on curriculum improvement and faculty development.
Preliminary Questions
Who Does it Impact?
This impact various stakeholders of the institute directly - Students, College Admin, Faculties and Future Batches/ Participants
Using Framing
Why do we want to change the process?
1. Benefits the institute when they have more credible data.
2. Feedback is essential, not just for interal improvement but also for rankings and documentation
3. Improving the feedback form instils a sense of ownership amongst students, hence making them more attached to the institute and kicking in the endowment effect
Who is misbehaving?
Students: The students miss the deadlines very often due to lack of motivation to fill out the form and also a lack of insights on how will their feedback be utilised.
College Administration: Insight into how the feedback is being used to improve the subjects. Moreover, nudges are not used to the best of their capabilities.
Future batches and their participants: If the processes are not improved or even the bias of participants not getting toknow of the improvement, then it directly impacts future batches.
Old Process
1. Reminder Email from Ms. Lisa Thomas Containing Course Name in Subject Line.
2. Log in to Ekosh with our user ID.
3. Navigate to the Feedback link.
4. Fill out the form.
5. The form contains five questions with seven options given points from 0 to 6 with a clause to fill in the reason in case options 0 to 4 are chosen.
Problem with old process
1. Relevance
The reminder email is not due to the boring subject line; many students put a filter that directly archives these emails.
Reason: There's so much information in the world that our brain needs to take shortcuts to save time and energy (i.e., System One). It's why feedback emails suffer from the Law of Shitty Clickthrough and a very low, disappointing completion rate.
2. Tone
The tone of the reminder email is dull and mildly coercive, repeatedly stressing potential downgrades for failure to complete the feedback form. This approach inadvertently discourages genuine feedback, as students view form completion merely as a task.
3. Tiresome
Navigating the Ekosh platform, locating the appropriate feedback link, and providing multiple feedback submissions within a single day can be exhausting. Since Ekosh serves as a central hub for students to access grades, download course materials, and submit assignments, it typically prompts logins either upon receiving emails or on the day of submission. Consequently, students often wait until the last date to fill out the feedback form for all their subjects collectively.
4. Clarity and Complexity
Hick's Law: The effort needed to make a decision increases with the number of options.
Solution
1. Relevant Subject Line
The subject line should be relevant and not mechanical. It should be short and human.
2. Timing
The timing of the mail should be
accurate. It should be sent just
post the last session.
3. Reduced Friction
It should be taken on the E-Mail itself. Navigating to Ekosh adds friction which reduces the number of inputs.
1. Easy to Understand
4. Human tone to make students to read the email
2. Clear choice of Options
5. Emojis increase the Clickthrough Rate
3. Less Choices reduce effort to make desicion
6. Colours help the readers to make decisions in case of Quick Read
1. No compulsion to fill detailed feedback multiple times
2. Benefits and Conditions should be clearly mentioned