History Department Response to Student Feedback
HSTY3002 - Issues in Travel and Tourism (2005)

Unit Coordinator: Mr Richard White

On the statement ‘Overall I was satisfied with the quality of this unit’, 80% strongly agreed, and 20% agreed, giving a satisfaction rating of 100%, the same as for the related first semester course. However whereas 100% of student then had ‘strongly’ agreed with the statement, in 2nd semester three students merely ‘agreed’. It might be significant that three students had joined the course for 2nd semester. While it is of course impossible to say who those students were, it might well be that students who joined the course in which everyone else had had a semester of group cohesion would have inevitably found it harder to get as much out of it.

Comments were generally positive about ‘really interesting and thought provoking’ content; ‘very effective and responsive’ and ‘inspiring’ and ‘enthusiastic’ teaching, quality of interaction among ‘highly motivated’ students (‘I have made many long term friends’; ‘sad that it’s the last class’; ‘Tutorial discussion was fantastic with everyone participating and contributing with intelligent comments’); ‘good balance between class discussion and his own input’; ‘fantastic field trips’; ‘Nice to be encouraged to make up my own mind and not depend on secondary sources’; ‘This is a great course, probably the best I have been enrolled in of my three years of university.’

One student commented the essay was returned too late for effective feedback: this is always a problem in courses where the assessment consists of a major research essay. Individual feedback, both written and oral, was given on essay proposals, due early in the semester as well as first semester essays: others commented that this was ‘extremely helpful’, ‘very considerate’ and ‘really helped me to improve, especially the meeting to discuss the essay afterwards.’

Apart from the always ambiguous workload question, the only items that did not rate 100% concerned clarity of outcomes, effective teaching, assessment demonstrating understanding and the outline’s accuracy (88%, 94 %, 88% and 93% respectively). These all elicited ‘neutral’ rather than negative responses. I will see if any fine tuning can be done if this course is taught again, but under the new structure, in the short term at least, only HSTY3001 will be taught.

I would just like to add my thanks to the students in this course – motivated, stimulating and amiable – who made it such a pleasure and privilege to teach. I learnt a great deal from the discussions and research if the students, and I hope to see some of the latter in print.