Science, Technology and Engineering

Department of Genetics

Undergraduate Information

Subject Review - Student Feedback
 

GEN32EEG (Ecological and Evolutionary Genetics) QAU Report 2006

Unit co-ordinator: Dr Yvonne Parsons

Enrolment: 63

Assessment: 60% theory exams 40% practical component

Grade distribution: A – 3; B – 13; C – 23; D – 13; N – 11.

QAU responses: 29

Summary of responses

Overall, satisfaction with the subject was high, and our academic goals were met.

65% students indicated that the aims were made clear most or all of the time.

93% said they obtained a lot of help with learning half or more of the time.

39% indicated that memorizing was less important than understanding

75% indicated that work loads were manageable most or all of the time.

89% indicated they could see how pracs and theory fit together half or more of the time.

71% indicated the amount and type of assessment was appropriate most/all of the time.

58% felt that they could approach lecturers most or all of the time

86% indicated the quality of teaching was high most/all of the time.

89% put the lectures in the top three brackets.

86% rated the project as satisfactory or higher.

97% rated the subject as satisfactory or higher with 79% in the top two brackets.

These results are largely reflected in the written responses outlined below and are in good agreement with verbal comments given by students during semester.

Written responses

What in this subject helped your learning?

The majority of students found the practicals and major project to have been the most helpful aspect of the unit in learning and understanding much of the lecture content and finding the relevance in population genetic variation. The LAS workshop on scientific report writing also featured as helpful as did the lecture notes, recommended text and references to journal articles

How could this subject be improved?

Most comments focused on the practical component with suggestions requesting additional help and training particularly with statistics, restructuring of the assignment and assessment and rearranging the order/timing of training. Other suggestions included improvements to lecture notes and providing them sooner, more conservation genetics lectures and greater access to research literature.

Any other comments about the lectures in this unit?

Comments were generally positive with the lectures "good", "well organized and informative" and the lecturers perceived as "useful and helpful, they really did try to help us understand what they were teaching and how to use that information". There were also a number of requests here for more extensive written notes and comments on the inevitable technical glitches.

Summary & actions

Lecturers and materials

Overall the lectures were well-received and the lecturers perceived as helpful and approachable. Detailed and web-based notes and a strong written structure to the subject were highly valued. Access to WebCT was useful. Past exams and various training sessions were helpful. The LAS scientific writing workshop was well received and assisted students with report writing.

Addressing student concerns:

In 2007 we will endeavour to provide additional lecture notes in a timely manner.

Practical component

The major project was highly regarded by many students helping them to understand the relevance of population genetics. It makes a very direct and personal link between theory and practical, and imparts many generic skills. Most students get a great deal from these projects that were initiated in 2000. Since then we have continued to adjust the structure and content based on student feed back and resource availability.

Many students find some of the basic concepts of science sufficiently difficult that we need to spend more time on them. For example the majority of the class have difficulty understanding basic statistics. We provide a number of training sessions on these, with exercises, written documents and open invitations for further explanations provided, and also provide assistance when students are analysing their own data. However, the student response indicates that we need to continue to investigate ways to improve their learning.

Addressing student concerns:

1) Increased training in statistics and population genetics

In response to student feedback from 2005, more time and effort was expended on statistics and population genetic training and more accessible computer software was utilised in 2006. The computer software was an improvement on previous years but, nonetheless, some students continued to struggle with statistical analysis. Consequently in 2007, we plan to re-organise tutorial structure and extend training material including additional learning exercises.

2) Assessment

In 2006 we changed the structure of assessment to address the student perception that the project report carried too many marks and work carried out during the practicals was not valued. The practical component comprises 40% of the total marks for the unit. In 2006 assessment comprised 10% for laboratory work and tutorial exercises and 30% for the final project report but there remained student perception that this is still inequitable. In 2007 we intend to revise the assessment to 10% for laboratory and tutorial components, 25% for the final report and introduce a preliminary report writing assignment worth 5%.

Additional aspects not covered in QAU

In 2007 it is planned to instigate methods to improve the students’ perception of the value of the unit in developing generic skills, communicating the value we place on student feedback and in providing coherent and frequent assessment of how the students are progressing. For example students will be given written feedback on the preliminary writing assignment.

BIO12GEN QAU Report 2006

Enrolment: 471 (Bundoora), 2 (Mildura)

Assessment: 80% theory exam, 20% practical component

Grade distribution: 7 A, 14 B, 25 C, 32 D, 23 N (excludes NS)

QAU responses: 358/473

The QAU was administered during the last practical class of the semester. This proves to be a successful way to ensure a large proportion of the students respond. The results were consistent with previous surveys, including the online survey from 2005. Overall the student surveys were encouraging, with the unit rated above 4/5 (mean 4.2) by majority of the students.

Lectures and Practicals

More than 75% of the students found the unit covered topics at an appropriate depth. And the introduction of new ideas was at a reasonable rate. 73% thought the lectures and prac were well integrated scoring a mean of 3.9/5. The questions relating to the design and use of the lab manual scored above 4/5, with 82% of students agreeing the manual assisted their learning and understanding of the subject all or most of the time.

Workload and support

80% of the students found the workload to be manageable. The level of support, help and advice was found to be appropriate, with 73% rating it 4/5 or 5 /5.

The use of WebCT to administer lecture notes, handouts and announcements continued to be very successful. A number of the students took part in the discussion board and the student forum allowed them to air any concerns.

Prescribed Textbook

Most students were positive in their response about the prescribed text, with less than 17% of the students found the textbook to be of ‘little use or no use’.

Actions

In response to the QAU the report writing exercise and oral presentation will be further finetuned. The practical program will continue to be developed increasing the amount of ‘Wet Lab’.  

Tania Blanksby
BIO12GEN Coordinator

BIO12GEN QAS Report 2005

Enrolment:485 (Bundoora), 3 (Mildura)

Assessment: 80% theory exam, 20% practical component

Grade distribution:4 A, 13 B, 30 C, 27 D, 26 N (excludes NS)

QAU responses: 358/473

Although the number of responses was significantly reduced, the results were consistent with previous surveys. The overall results of the student surveys were encouraging, with the unit rated above 4/5 (mean 4.3) by majority of the students. The level of support, help and advice was found to be appropriate, with 86% rating it 4/5 or 5 /5.

Lectures and Practicals

More than 85% of the students found the unit covered topics at an appropriate depth. And the introduction of new ideas was at a reasonable rate. 79% thought the lectures and prac were well integrated scoring a mean of 3.9/5. The questions relating to the design and use of the lab manual scored a 4.5/5, with 96% of students agreeing the manual assisted their learning and understanding of the subject all or most of the time.

Workload and support

88% of the students found the workload to be manageable.

The use of WebCT to administer handouts and announcements continued to be very successful.

Prescribed Textbook

In 2005 the new textbook integrated well into the unit. Most students were positive in their response with less than 15% of the students found the textbook to be of ‘little use or no use’.

Changes for 2006:

In response to the student feedback surveys, we will be introducing more “Lab. Skills” exercises into the practical component of the unit.

Tania Blanksby
BIO12GEN Coordinator

GEN22EEG (Ecological and Evolutionary Genetics) QAS report 2005

Unit co-ordinator: Dr Neil Murray

Enrolment: 162

Assessment: 70% theory exams 30% practical component

Grade distribution: 3 A, 10 B, 20 C, 44 D, 23 N

QAS responses: 129

Students were on average satisfied half to most of the time with aspects of the unit, such as clarity of aims, support, manageable workload and assessment (3.3 – 3.8). Particular questions were asked about WebCT as this was introduced for the first time in 2005 for GEN22EEG. The accessibility and usefulness of WebCT, in particular for lecture material, was felt to be easy most of the time (4.1 – 4.2). Responses to open ended questions indicated that the lecture material and practicals were equally considered the best thing about the unit, however, there was a large percentage of no response (55%) to this question. Aspects of the organisation of the unit that need improving were identified, availability of online lecture notes prior to lectures and less waiting time during practicals. On average, students rated the unit overall as ‘satisfactory’ to ‘good’ (3.4).

Changes for 2006

Lecture notes will be made available online at least 24 hrs prior to lectures, whenever possible. WebCT will be used to make links to other services (eg LAS and Library), to include more background information and for online submission of assignments. In practicals where waiting time is unavoidable example questions and/or revision questions will be incorporated.

Dr Pam Hurst
2nd year Practical Co-ordinator

GEN31HMG – QAS Report Semester 1 2005

Over 70% of 62 students enrolled in Gen31HMG completed and returned a course evaluation run by the LaTrobe University ADU.

Lectures

Many of the students commented how approachable the staff were, and how this helped not only in understanding the subject matter but also in preparing for exams. Over 65% of the students felt that the lectures and practicals fit together well; this question scoring a mean of 3.8 out of 5.
While many of the students thought the subject was more difficult than other University subjects they had undertaken, students overall felt they had learned a lot and developed an interest in this subject. This question gave a mean score of 4.1 out of 5.

Practicals

More than 58% of the students found the techniques they learnt throughout the practical class exercises were useful, while more than 88% found the teaching quality to be high. The students did make comment about having the practical manual on the web, which hopefully will be rectified in 2006.

The practicals were rated quite highly with a mean score of 4.7 out of 7.

Special and Supplementary assessments are not included in the above results . Overall the performance of students was consistent with previous years, with an overall pass rate of 83%. This value increased once Specials and Supplementary assessments were included.

Conclusion – The general tone of the comments from the student feedback suggest that the high quality of teaching in this subject (gen31HMG) has been maintained in 2005. The students found the Academic staff were extremely helpful and interested in the subject and in imparting this knowledge to them. In addition to the official questions on the ADU Questionnaire, we always ask students for personal comments on the individual Staff members and their own parts of the course. These comments are almost always very complimentary and notice is taken of them in improving future year courses

GEN21HMG (Human and Molecular Genetics) QAS report 2004

Unit co-ordinator: Dr Neville White

Enrolment: 178

Assessment: 70% theory exams 30% practical component

Grade distribution:2 A, 7 B, 22 C, 37 D, 32 N

QAS responses: 145

  This is the second year since the change from GEN21MGG to GEN21HMG, which was associated with the fusion of the second semester second year subjects GEN22ECG and GEN22HUM into GEN22EEG. In response to the 2003 GEN21HMG QAS report the textbook was changed, there was an increased amount of ‘hands on’ practical experience, and most lecture notes were on the Genetics webpage. Despite the change in textbook, however, the students on average felt it was useful ‘little of the time’. Lab work was considered better organized than in 2003 (3.3 compared to 2.9 out of 5) and this was also reflected in the open response questions. The use of the web increased, with students, on average, accessing the lecture notes via the web before attending lectures between ‘half’ and ‘most of the time’. The lectures rated well, 4.5 (out of 7) and on average, students rated the unit overall as ‘satisfactory’ (4.1 out of 7).

Changes for 2005

WebCT will be used in 2005 with the aim to introduce an additional teaching tool. WebCT will enable online quizzes (both revision and assessment) and student access to practical assessment marks. The 2004 textbook will not be recommend for 2005. An upgrade of the Genetics computer lab will make it possible to better synchronise practicals with lectures.

Dr Pam Hurst
2nd year Practical Co-ordinator

GEN32EEG (Human and Molecular Genetics) QAS report 2004