Student Feedback and Program Evaluation

Student Opinion Surveys: Collected through Cally to gather feedback about the following learning modes. 

• Overall Courses, Clerkships, and Coordinators 

• Individual Instructors and Facilitators (Large Group Sessions, Small Group Teaching, Structured Learning Sessions, etc.)

• Individual Preceptors and Residents (Workplace-based Learning in Clerkship)

• Be sure to follow the Guidelines and Procedures for Student Opinion Surveys when providing your input on instructors and the program

Clerkship Feedback Sessions: The Assistant Dean, Program Evaluation and/or the Program Evaluation Specialist meet with students at the end of every clerkship rotation to gather verbal feedback about their experiences with that rotation

Hotspot Surveys: Collected through Cally and sent to clerks every four weeks; used to evaluate the learning environment in each clerkship and clinical site

Overall, sources of student feedback are grouped into three broad categories: Person, Place, and Program. The following diagram highlights how these various sources of data intersect.

Student Opinion Surveys

Student opinion surveys are distributed through Cally, the MD Program’s program delivery system. Students receive opinion surveys automatically through the system and have 14 days to complete them. Automated reminders are sent 3 times every 3 days until the form is completed. After 14 days, students will experience a temporary delay when accessing Cally until the outstanding form(s) are complete.

Student feedback is critical for the MD program's ongoing quality improvement. It is also essential for individual faculty members who use their teaching reports for tenure, promotion, and annual review and reflection. 

Students, administrative staff, teachers, and program leaders comprise a community of learning, and each has an obligation to foster psychological safety and trust. Students must provide constructive, actionable, and professional feedback about individual teaching performance.

Student opinion surveys are collected during the following time points throughout the program:

Preclerkship

• End-of-course/course coordinator student opinion survey- distributed to the whole class at the end of each block. 

• Large groups, labs, and small group sessions- distributed to 20% of the class at the end of each session. 

• Discovery Learning- provided by each student to their DL preceptor. 

Clerkship

• End-of-clerkship/clerkship coordinator student opinion survey submitted by the whole class at the end of each rotation.

• Structured teaching, small group sessions, and academic half days submitted by 20% of the group per rotation.

• Preceptor and resident submitted each time a preceptor/resident completes an EPA for a student, that student/preceptor pairing is put into a  'draw' that uses an adaptive algorithm to minimize the burden of student effort and maximize feedback for preceptors. The draws occur each week, and the odds of a student getting assigned an evaluation decrease by the number of EPAs the preceptor has (1:2,1:10, 1:100). The algorithm also considers whether the student has already evaluated the preceptor. 

Other Student Feedback for Quality Improvement

The MD Program also collects student opinions in other ways, including the annual Student Perspective Surveys for overall quality improvement and surveys administered by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC) every year (Entry Survey for year 1 students; Pre-Clerkship Survey at the end of year 2; Graduation Questionnaire at the end of year 4).

What happens to all this feedback?

Students are often curious about what happens to their feedback. The chart below describes how students provide feedback to the program and how that feedback is compiled, distributed, and acted upon.