Enhancing Feedback Opportunities for Students: A Quick Poll Pilot Test

Feedback is a vital component of any course experience. It can take many forms, formats, and tones, but is generally intended to provide information about a previous performance and used to direct future efforts. The instructor of an online, asynchronous course noted an opportunity to improve student-to-instructor feedback processes and better tailor upcoming module content to students’ current level of understanding, based on their feedback. A quick poll element guided by best practices borrowed from quality improvement theory was designed and implemented. A survey of student attitudes and experiences with the quick polling intervention was also administered with the campus Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching. Descriptive and frequency analyses were conducted for both instruments. Data from this pilot study indicate the quick polling was well-received by students, did not create a significant time burden for student or instructor, was completed by at least three quarters of the class for every poll, and informed 16 modifications to better tailor upcoming content to students’ current level of understanding. Lessons learned from this pilot are also included for replicability of this quick polling intervention.