Apparently my students are unhappy

[UnhappyAcademic]

So as programme lead my boss called me into a meeting. Apparently some students complained about the course to someone not directly on the course. The complaints were quite serious

so SLT got the students together (without our knowledge) and asked what the issues were. general stuff regarding feeling that staff didn’t care about them and they felt not valued.

so I was asked what I intend to do about it. So I’ve asked for more specifics about why the students feel we don’t care, etc and nothing was forthcoming. It sounds like SLT didn’t ask. So I’m now in the position of not really knowing what the issue is.

module evaluations are ok. Nss wasn’t great but again no real details. The main stuff I have heard students complain about are out of my control, OneUni stuff, placement capacity.

I feel as a team we support the students so much. We answer emails, provide academic and pastoral support. Sessions are organised, blackboard sites are up and running, assessments clearly stated and don’t change. Anyone can have a 1-1 about anything at any time. I had two stressed emails from students today and teams called them both back by lunchtime. We do a weekly online drop in which students can come to with any issues.

any ideas for anything innovative, different I can do to make students feel more loved?

Really sorry this is happening- it's so stressful. With increased numbers and often lower tariff entry it's a recipe for unhappy students. They tend to turn anxieties about keeping up with the academic work into general unhappiness - then add in cost of living and a general difficulty with resilience and it ramps up their misery. It's difficult for them to acknowledge this so it gets dumped in the general misery pot. You mention placements which you have limited control over ( and if it's anywhere in public services it's likely to be a total shitshow currently) which again gets put in the misery bucket. Timetabling is a nightmare everywhere - so that tips into the bucket

Things to help (a little bit) I've found/heard of are Providing QRS codes for anonymous feedback, ensuring well publicised 'You said We did' information, encouraging more staff/student social events.

Otherwise sounds like you're doing all that's being asked/is possible. If it's any consolation it's similar everywhere

I feel your pain. We look after our students so so so well in my Department - to the extent that it can compromise our physical & mental health. But still they complain.

I am coming to think that there's something in the "Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" strategy.

Or at least a reminder that there are human beings teaching them.

Thank you both.

honestly my Dd is at uni and her personal tutor has an out of office reply on saying he’s prioritising his mental health and doesn’t read emails, and I bend over backwards and they still are unhappy! 😫

I like the idea of staff/student social events, we haven’t done that so can give that a go. I have started with the more regular “you said/we did” blackboard announcements this academic year so I hope that’s helping.

Thank you both.

honestly my Dd is at uni and her personal tutor has an out of office reply on saying he’s prioritising his mental health and doesn’t read emails, and I bend over backwards and they still are unhappy! 😫

I like the idea of staff/student social events, we haven’t done that so can give that a go.
I have started with the more regular “you said/we did” blackboard announcements this academic year so I hope that’s helping.
Placements are public services so yes, total nightmare and anxious unhappy students there for sure.

We do online mid module and end of module reviews for anonymous feedback but think I will add a question into those which is more “how are things in general “ rather than about that specific module.
So they have the opportunity to bring things up.

Thank you both.

honestly my Dd is at uni and her personal tutor has an out of office reply on saying he’s prioritising his mental health and doesn’t read emails, and I bend over backwards and they still are unhappy! 😫

I like the idea of staff/student social events, we haven’t done that so can give that a go.
I have started with the more regular “you said/we did” blackboard announcements this academic year so I hope that’s helping.
Placements are public services so yes, total nightmare and anxious unhappy students there for sure.

We do online mid module and end of module reviews for anonymous feedback but think I will add a question into those which is more “how are things in general “ rather than about that specific module.
So they have the opportunity to bring things up.

Thank you both.

honestly my Dd is at uni and her personal tutor has an out of office reply on saying he’s prioritising his mental health and doesn’t read emails, and I bend over backwards and they still are unhappy! 😫

I like the idea of staff/student social events, we haven’t done that so can give that a go.
I have started with the more regular “you said/we did” blackboard announcements this academic year so I hope that’s helping.
Placements are public services so yes, total nightmare and anxious unhappy students there for sure.

We do online mid module and end of module reviews for anonymous feedback but think I will add a question into those which is more “how are things in general “ rather than about that specific module.
So they have the opportunity to bring things up.

my uni has definitely done a lot of 'you said - we did' posters which probably help a bit.

and I think more social events for students help - a lot of them may be lonely & miserable & unsure how to make friends. Seems crazy but they've all been in lockdowns for too long and many have high anxiety too. if the lectures become a friendly occasion where they can chat a bit & see someone they know, then the rest is much easier.

the ideal is for the university to pay for a venue and pizza at least once a term. Failing that, having more icebreaker / chat activities in class and possibly formative work that puts the students into small groups (the same group each time) might help some of them.

I'm sorry to hear this. The lack of specifics is something I found quite interesting - speaks of general discontent and unhappiness, as other posters have suggested, rather than at anything wrong with the course. I am aware that each place will be different, but when we've had "difficult" cohorts in my department sometimes it came down to a few very vocal, opinionated individuals, who thought (and said) that EVERYTHING we did was wrong and NOTHING was good. Then evaluations would paint a more balanced picture. I wonder if maybe there's a dynamic like that happening.
Also the "no one cares" comment reminds me of specific incidents in my department which triggered a similar reaction - for example, the students putting together a function, or a performance, or a charity event, etc. and then no staff turning up. Which of course it can happen that genuinely no one can attend, but I've found that coordinating to make sure that there's some staff representation on those occasions can go a long way.
So I know that this is very specific and might not apply but I wonder if this is down to a few individuals or a specific event and not representative of general sentiment.
Apart from the suggestions made here I would add setting expectations (which maybe you already do). If you say something like "you can expect a reply to your e-mail in 72 working hours" then people are less likely to feel unheard than say if they sent an e-mail 24 hour ago and have no idea when a reply is going to come back. Maybe something like a department newsletter, where you celebrate student successes and publicize any events or initiatives they organize could also help in creating community.

but when we've had "difficult" cohorts in my department sometimes it came down to a few very vocal, opinionated individuals, who thought (and said) that EVERYTHING we did was wrong and NOTHING was good.

Same here!

Do you have course reps? They should be able to find out specifics.

I have found that it's often the course reps who are the most vocal in expressing constant unhappiness. Particularly with large cohorts the course reps can have their own agenda at the expense of the wider student opinion.

It might be too late for this approach, but we have staff-student liaison committees at UG and PGT levels which are held once a term. They get a formal forum to communicate programme-wide issues to us, everything is minuted and action points are communicated back to them. Course reps and other students (I have no idea how it is decided who attends) report back to the relevant student body.

Couple of the cohorts have reps, one doesn’t as the cohort had a falling out and the reps quit.

we have regular official liaison meetings which the reps are meant to come to but often don’t.

definitely have some vocal students and then others who have turned round to me and said they’re really happy and some people need to stop moaning. That the support is available but people don’t take staff up on it (ie academic tutorials, library support sessions) and then complain about lack of support.

it’s fairly small cohorts so I guess it only takes a handful of vocal, unhappy students to really make things look bad.

I was a course rep as a mature student, had zero of my own complaints, and cringed discussing 90% of them as they were either petty, ridiculous, outside of the academic staffs remit, or them expecting academic staff to spoon feed them.

Embarrassing for a STEM cohort at an RG, frankly. And agree re course reps and their own agenda. There were around 60 in my cohort, I was the only mature student (in my 30s…) and nobody wanted to do it except for me.

The only reason I did it for all 4 years (I went part time in my second year due to the Pandemic) was because it gave me an insight into the shite you all put up with.

Not quite sure why I’ve just applied for a PhD (doing Masters now)…

I had one “big” meeting per term, and around 2-3 smaller ones per month. Very interesting to take part in and eye opening to the level of entitlement and babying that a lot of them seem to need (and it got a lot worse post-Pandemic).

The message I am taking away from all this is that whatever we do, some people will never be satisfied.

Be thankful you don't have Unitu!

I did dad something around the time of the last nss that in a typical cohort 10-20% will be very happy regardless and carry on making the best of it even if it’s not great. Around 10-20% will be unhappy and complaining no matter what you do. The majority are somewhere in the middle and can be easily swayed one way or the other. But we spend our time trying to appease the permanently unhappy vocal ones and neglect the large quiet middle group when actually they’re the ones we need to focus on.

I sympathize.

You can't win with this nonsense. They (departments) are apt to respond in a knee-jerk way to NSS results, MEQs and other metrics without clearly thinking them through. What annoys one cohort, another won't mind and they don't consider that they're simply making a different set of problems to deal with next year.

A perennial problem for me is that students are consistently telling us they want more time with lecturing staff. So we give them more time, feed more hours onto the courses (which they don't notice; students simply don't look at the bigger picture of how many hours their courses stretch over the course of a semester). They have new time written in, more office consultation slots, tutorials etc; - because they're telling us that's what they want. Do they show up? (Do bears shit in the woods?)

Another bugbear is that no matter how much assessment guidance they're given - even if you do something every single week to build towards the assessment - they will complain they've not been given enough. Many of these complaints will come from serial non-attendees (who also have access to consultation hours and can talk to us via Zoom these days if necessary). You said/we did is one small thing to try to communicate, and a mid-module evaluation to see how things are going another. Feedback from students on both is usually scant, unless there really is an issue somewhere. Most of the time it's just the usual gripes.

This is the unfortunate consequence of treating the student body as paid customers. (I sound as though I don't like my students. I do. It's the system that's the issue here).

Oh - and MEQs are ALWAYS harsher on female staff. Drives me potty - but this falls under the category of issues I can't fix.

We do online mid module and end of module reviews for anonymous feedback but think I will add a question into those which is more “how are things in general “ rather than about that specific module.

We keep these simple.

What's going well?
How can we make this module even better?

That's all that's necessary - I normally find if you invite complaints, you tend to get them. It's one of the reasons the NSS is so hard to work with: their questions seem to have been calculated to generate negative responses!

Yes, students set the bar higher for a) women and b) people who already do a lot for them.
These categories tend to overlap.

It helps to be extremely positive about each other - i.e. Yes, colleague x is really excited about teaching you that topic. Did they tell you about all the work they put in during the summer etc etc. Reminders that we are all human.

In your case though, you need to have the meeting again but with you at it!

Have a look at the Will Thalheimer book about meaningful feedback design. Really helpful in getting actionable feedback.

Lack of assessment guidance was a common complaint and completely unfounded - I actually think there was too much, on one module there was an FAQ sheet given out that had very basic information on about certain things in the assignment and I sat there thinking “If they don’t know these things, how the fuck have they made it into second year?” (that thought remained all year and into my third year with multiple other things). Other than handing them the answers or writing it for them, there was nothing else to be done.

I think a lot of is most can’t recognise their (lack of) ability and the jumps between the years.

Ironically i found the less help they got and the more work they had to do the less they complained on the written feedback.

God, so much of this resonates! The majority of my students have zero interest in going into my rather niche (but essential) area, but have to do it as a requirement of the course. The number of complaints from a vocal minority about absolutely everything are just exhausting, endless action plans based on a couple of students who would never have been happy with any part of the module whatever we did because they don't want to be there in the first place...