2018-19 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. In the 2018-19 SLEQ-UG, 1938, 1510 and 1729 first, second and final year students participated in the survey respectively.

Highlights of Findings

Overall performance on Achievement of Educational Aims, Teaching and Learning Environment, and Overall Satisfaction remained steady across years (Figure 1). Similar to previous data, final year students reported the highest scores on all three aspects.
In the longitudinal tracking on the same cohort of students who completed the SLEQ-UG in their first year and again in their final year, the 2018-19 data reported a consistent trajectory of improvement. Substantial increases were found in students’ attainment of HKU’s Educational Aims (i.e., Critical Intellectual Inquiry, Tackling Novel Situations and Ill-Defined Problems, Intercultural Understanding, Communication, and Upholding Personal and Professional Ethic) (Figure 2).
Almost 75% of final year respondents responded positively to questions about their overall learning experiences related to Internationalisation, Interdisciplinarity, Innovation, and Impact, the University’s 3+1 Is Strategy.
Open-ended comments were visualised in comparison word clouds together with selected raw comments to show the keywords and ideas most frequently mentioned by students on “Best Aspects of University Experience” and “Suggestions for Improvement” (Figures 3a-3c). First year students commonly mentioned “friend”, “meet”, and “learn”, second years highlighted “learn”, and final years emphasised “exchange” when reflecting on the best aspects of their university experience.

Detailed results at the institutional, Faculty, and curriculum levels are available at the online Institutional Survey Reports System (ISRS), which allows Faculties to generate survey reports at various levels and make comparisons across years. All academic and administrative staff with access rights could 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 2014-15 and 2018-19

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

a. SLEQ-UG1

b. SLEQ-UG2

c. SLEQ-UGF

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