Responding to the learner voice

At the end of last year, Ako Aotearoa signed an agreement with Ralph Springett, president of Massey University’s Extramural Students’ Society (EXMSS), to fund a student-led project aimed at finding out what tertiary learners at Massey University think of the quality of their tertiary education experience.

Titled “Review It”, the tool builds on EXMSS’s current “Rate It” tertiary paper rating system and will provide an online information forum for students to research future paper choices. The evaluation tool is carefully moderated and seeks to recognise teaching excellence as well as supporting continuous quality improvement. The initiative is part of what Peter Coolbear describes as Ako Aotearoa’s “next critical steps to develop the debate with tertiary learners directly about their key issues concerning the quality of their education.”

The EXMSS team expects “Review It” will deliver improved decision-making capability for students around paper choice and improved satisfaction in the choices they make.

Dr Peter Coolbear, Ako Aotearoa director, with Ralph Springett,
president of Massey University's Extramural Students' Society.

Ako Aotearoa is excited about the project’s potential to provide a model of an appropriately managed, learner-led evaluation tool that may, in time, be available to the whole tertiary sector. We see the value of this in providing robust learner-perspective information that can be triangulated against provider-driven evidence supporting quality improvement.

We look forward to updating you as this “Review It” project progresses.