Response to Student Feedback
HSTY2051 - Spanish Civil War (2005)

Unit Coordinator: Dr Judith Keene

Of the 120 students enrolled in this corse 70% participated in the course evaluation. Overall 95.8% of students were satisfied with the quality of this unit and felt that the outcomes had been what they had expected. Almost 20% of the respondent felt that the workload was too high, as in “there was way to much to read each week”; but on the other hand, 80% felt that it was acceptable, as in “there was a lot of reading but it was relevant to the course”.

The individual handwritten comments on the course can be clustered into several categories. Most students enjoyed the lectures and their tutorial meetings. A number of students would have preferred that the course reading pack was arranged week by week rather than alphabetically. My reponse to this is that in the future I will include the tutorial list in the reading pack but maintain the alphabetical arrangement. After the course is over it is much easier to find the material by alphabet than by weekly topic.

Most students knew little about Spanish history when they began though the Spanish majors had some familiarity with Spanish literature. A number of students mentioned the interest they had developed in Robert Capa’s work and had sought it out in other places.

Students almost unanimously enjoyed the essay topics and the independent research and synposes that went with the assignment. At least two respondents thought that the tutorial paper was too long. A few students said that they would have preferred a paper handout to power point presentations. The numbers of times students accessed the power point lectures afterwards varied from “never’ to “each week” to “only at the end when preparing for the exam”.

There were only two respondents who were not engaged in permanent part time employment. The hours students worked each week varied from 3 per week up to an astonishing 30 hours. In view of this, it is a sign of an organized student cohort that there were almost no late essays and lecture attendance steadily remained very high.