Student Feedback

Gathering Student Feedback

While students are not subject or pedagogy experts, students spend more time with faculty than anyone else and can provide valuable information about instructor behaviors such as whether the instructor was engaging, prepared, organized, and understandable. When used in combination with other components of teaching evaluation, and when interpreted carefully, student feedback is a valuable tool for measuring effective teaching. Each school or department should determine how to gather student feedback on teaching effectiveness.

The Process of Gathering Student Feedback

One way to gather student feedback is to use the Student Instructional Rating Survey (SIRS), a university-wide survey of students for their comments about their experiences in the classroom. The results are used by the individual instructors, departments, schools, and the University for the assessment and improvement of teaching. Faculty members are asked to provide summaries of the student survey statistics for personnel decisions such as tenure, promotion, or merit-based pay. All members of the University have access to the summary statistics from the student surveys at SIRS Results web site.

For more immediate feedback, a midcourse survey can provide insight into how the students are feeling about the course at any point in the semester. Midcourse surveys are generally intended solely for the use of the instructors, but some schools or departments may choose to run a more formalized midcourse survey.

Discussing Feedback with Students

We encourage instructors to discuss student feedback with their students, as closing the loop is crucial for the feedback process. Faculty can discuss midcourse feedback with current students or review past SIRS feedback when teaching a subsequent semester. These discussions not only address student concerns but also educate students on how to provide focused, constructive feedback.

However, instructors should take care to avoid reprimanding or arguing with students about their feedback. Such actions can undermine trust and make students less likely to provide feedback in the future. Faculty should also assure students that survey responses are anonymous and that their feedback will never impact their grades. Before addressing negative feedback with their students, instructors may want to discuss the feedback with a trusted colleague or advisor. 

If an instructor feels a need to respond to student feedback in their teaching materials, the teaching portfolio offers a good place to address it, provide context, and explain their pedagogical approach.

Upcoming Workshops

Visit Workshops and Training to browse a complete selection of our available workshops.

  • Evaluating Teaching using SIRS and other forms of Student Feedback (Virtual Interactive Workshop)

    Thursday, September 24, 2026
    9:30 am – 11:00 am

    While students are crucial stakeholders in the university’s teaching enterprise, their feedback should not be mistaken for “evaluation of teaching,” which is a task for instructional colleagues. Student feedback is an indicator which provides evidence that must be interpreted. In this workshop, we explore scholarly research on the limitations and potential biases of student feedback. We present strategies for how department chairs and program directors should review, interpret, and utilize the likert-scale and comment responses from the Student Instructional Ratings Survey (SIRS) to improve course curriculum, support faculty, and evaluate teaching. This workshop is especially beneficial for those who regularly engage with SIRS, but we also encourage anyone from the university community interested in learning about best practices in interpreting student feedback to join us. To attend the workshop or to receive the video recording after the workshop, please register.

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  • Interpreting Student Feedback for Course Improvement (Virtual Interactive Workshop) 

    Tuesday, October 6, 2026
    12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

    Student feedback, whether from mid‑course or end‑of‑course surveys, has its limitations, but it can still offer a valuable signal about how students experience your teaching and course design. To make the most of that input, you need well‑crafted questions that surface what you truly care about, strategies for interpreting open‑ended comments, practical approaches to analyzing qualitative feedback, and a clear sense of which feedback to act on and which to set aside. You also need effective techniques for eliciting high-quality feedback in the first place, especially when you’re facing low response rates, contradictory comments, or emotionally charged reactions. This session helps you turn student feedback into actionable insights, so you can address concerns, strengthen learning experiences, and make meaningful adjustments while the course is still in progress. You will examine sample feedback, practice interpreting both quantitative data and qualitative comments, and draft or refine your own survey questions to better align with your goals. By the end of the workshop, you will leave with a clearer framework for deciding which feedback deserves your attention and practical strategies for using student input to guide concrete changes in your courses. If you wish to attend the workshop or receive the video recording after the workshop, please register. 

    Register