2017-18 SLEQ-UG KEY FINDINGS

HKU conducts institutional surveys on students’ learning experiences for undergraduates (SLEQ-UG) on an annual basis for teaching and learning quality assurance and continuous improvement. First, second and final year undergraduate students were invited to participate in the SLEQ-UG.

Highlights of Findings

  • Overall performance on Achievement of Educational Aims, Teaching and Learning Environment, and Overall Satisfaction remained consistent across years (Figure 1). Similar to the 2016-17 data, final year students reported the highest scores on all three aspects.
  • The same cohort of students who completed the SLEQ-UG in their first year and again in their final year was tracked. Similar to previous years, the 2017-18 data reported a consistent trajectory of improvement. Substantial increases were seen on students’ attainment of HKU’s Educational Aims (i.e., Critical Intellectual Inquiry, Tackling Novel Situations and Ill-Defined Problems, Critical Self-reflection, Intercultural Understanding, Communication, Upholding Personal and Professional Ethics, Global Citizenship), Using English as a Medium of Learning, Common Core: Cultural (or intercultural) Awareness and Common Core: Global Awareness (Figure 2).
  • Nearly 75% of final year respondents agreed or strongly agreed on questions pertaining to their overall learning experiences in relation to Internationalisation, Interdisciplinarity, Innovation and Impact, the University’s 3+1 Is Strategy.
  • Open-ended comments were visualised in comparison word clouds to highlight the keywords most frequently used by students on “Best Aspects of University Experience” and “Suggestions for Improvement” (Figures 3a-3c).
Detailed results at the institutional, Faculty and curriculum levels are available at the online Institutional Survey Reports System (ISRS), which enables Faculties to generate survey reports at various levels and make comparisons across years. All academic staff and administrative staff with access rights can directly access the System after logging on to the HKU Portal account (HKU Portal > Self Service > Teaching and Learning > Institutional Survey Reports > View Reports). Detailed instructions on using the System are available in the User Manual, downloadable here.
Faculties are welcome to contact Dr. Maggie Zhao at myzhao @ hku.hk for support in interpreting and utilising survey data, and Ms. Yvonne Chan at chanyyw @ hku.hk for technical support in using ISRS.

Figure 1. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from the SLEQ-UG between 2013-14 and 2017-18

Note. New “Overall Satisfaction” questions were introduced in the 2017-18 SLEQ; therefore, the 2017-18 mean score is not comparable to the means obtained in previous years, as represented in the grey dotted line.

Figure 2. Longitudinal Tracking of Students’ Perceived Achievement of HKU’s Educational Aims

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a. SLEQ-UG1

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b. SLEQ-UG2

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c. SLEQ-UGF

Figure 3. Open-ended Comments on Suggestions for Improvement (Red) and Best Aspects of University Experience (Blue) in Comparison Word Clouds