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Abstract

The Police Studies program at the University of Tasmania (UTAS), Australiahas been growing exponentially since 2015. Since then, UTAS became theonly Australian university teaching police across several jurisdictions. Onekey to this success has been the improvement of teaching and learningvia an incremental yet drastically altered approach to student experienceand feedback. In 2017, rather than relying on student evaluations thatwere not engaging individuals positively, innovative and alternativemeans were sought to ensure communication and feedback couldcontribute to teaching and learning development, as well as collaborativestaff and student development. Student evaluations became qualitativeonly and fully identified. This radically changed the feedback provided toboth police and UTAS lecturers teaching recruits at the police academy.This paper analyses the changes that occurred after teaching staffdecided to completely depart from anonymous and quantitative studentevaluations. Eighteen (18) police educators teaching at the TasmaniaPolice Academy (both police and UTAS staff) were invited to provide theirviews on those changes. Via an exploratory study of staff experience (67%surveys were returned), and in light of recent literature in tertiary education,we contest current assumptions about, and practice in, student feedback.Our approach arguably disputes traditional and historical thinking onthe normative role and format of student data in evaluating the qualityof a learning experience. We argue that this innovative, transparent andaccountable feedback unlocks ways to embed students within curriculumimprovement, teacher development, and learning experience.

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Bartkowiak-Theron, I and McShane, ALJ and Knight, MG
Keywords:	police tertiary education, student evaluation, police education, police training
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching
Publisher:	Kaplan Singapore
ISSN:	2591-801X
DOI / ID Number:	https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2020.3.s1.16
Copyright Information:	Copyright 2020 The Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Related URLs:	Google Scholar: Bartkowiak-Theron, I UTAS Profile: Bartkowiak-Theron, I
Item Statistics:	View statistics for this item

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