Make your voice heard! Complete the Student Learning Experience Questionnaire (SLEQ) for each of your classes before April 4.

The Student Learning Experience Questionnaire (SLEQ) is a tool for collecting student feedback on courses. SLEQ was piloted in 2017, and now students in most colleges can submit feedback on their classroom experience. For the Winter 2025 term, the end-of-course survey for the Winter 2025 term opened on March 21 and closes on April 4, accessible through Canvas.. 

David Greaves works at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning as part of the Teaching and Learning Enhancement team, overseeing SLEQ. He says his team supports instructors by collecting information on teaching and learning experiences, including student feedback, to inform future decisions about teaching.

Greaves describes SLEQ as a piece of the bigger puzzle for improving learning environments. He says SLEQ is meant to gather students’ perspectives on their learning experiences, “Whatever that experience is, it’s important that the instructors know it from the student’s perspective because (…) [instructors] can contextualize some of the decisions that are made about teaching, what has worked well, what maybe should be done a little bit differently and how we can make sure that the learning environments are top notch in every way.”

SLEQ includes a mid-course and end-of-term survey, consisting of five to nine university-wide closed or open-ended questions. Along with the university-wide questions, departments or colleges and instructors have the option to add their own questions. “We want to make it broad enough that we can use common language across courses at the university, but also customizable enough that we’re thinking about the nuance of the different disciplines,” says Greaves. He explains how students will have different experiences in an arts course versus a pharmacy course, for example, and that the format of questions makes sure these differences are accounted for. 

The set of instructor questions includes zero to four open-ended questions. Greaves says, “[instructor questions] are just for the instructor’s benefit. They’re not intended to be anything more summative. The point is for the instructor to learn what they want to know from their students without any fear.”  

During his meeting with instructors about their open-ended questions, Greaves asks them, “What is your goal for teaching? What experience(s) do you hope your students will have?” Through answering these questions the instructor can develop a set of questions that allows students to provide specific feedback. Greaves also gets instructors to reflect on “What’s changed this term and did it work? Did you, the instructor, use some new readings that you want to ask the students about, such as if they were helpful for their learning?”  

Student feedback is shared with instructors and academic leaders such as the Department Head or Dean. Feedback from the instructor’s questions is only shared with the instructor. The report with students’ feedback is anonymized, meaning that the SLEQ system protects students’ privacy. 

Greaves says, “Instructors don’t see individual responses. They won’t see line by line ‘Oh, this person said this comment and this is what their rating was,’ because those are not linked whatsoever.”

Instructors see a report that includes a summary of the closed-ended responses, and for the open-ended questions, they see the responses as written in a randomized order. The closed-ended questions have five options (a great deal, mostly, moderately, somewhat, and not at all) that students use to rate their experiences. The instructor’s report shows these response patterns, how many students chose each option, in a table format. 

SLEQ tries to protect student anonymity with the reporting of open-ended question responses by asking students for permission to include their written responses in the instructor report, even if there are less than five responses. 

The SLEQ procedures document outlines that comments are only removed from the reports if they are “wholly inappropriate, such as comments that are hateful or discriminatory on the basis of attributes such as gender, sexual or gender identity, race, ethnicity, religion or disability, or other violations of the University of Saskatchewan’s policies.”

The document also safeguards student safety by including provisions that if a written response demonstrates a safety concern, risk of harm to the student themselves or others, then Protective Services will be notified of the student’s identity.  

New Updates & Ongoing Efforts to Increase Participation 

This year, a major upgrade added new tools and made the student interface mobile-friendly. While most recent updates focus on instructor view and accessibility, the SLEQ system now features enhanced data reporting for greater accuracy. To boost participation, new campus banners with QR codes, Canvas pop-ups, student newsletter mentions, and individual notifications have been set up to promote the system.

Encouraging participation remains a challenge, as many students skip SLEQ reviews unless they feel strongly. Greaves emphasizes that this perspective is worth communicating, as more feedback leads to more reliable results. He encourages students to submit SLEQ, saying, “When there’s fewer responses it can limit the information that instructors receive (…) the more data you have, the better the results you can get. The more student responses, the better picture we can get of what the overall student learning experience was.”

He urges students to “write honestly but kindly and respectfully” while acknowledging their worldview and implicit biases.

Greaves highlighted the role of student feedback in teaching awards, noting that it often serves as evidence of exceptional teaching. While both ratings and comments are considered, he emphasized that comments are particularly valuable in illustrating why an instructor deserves a specific award. 

Student Concerns: Transparency & Rate My Professor

When asked about Rate My Professor and how it has become a go-to resource for students, Greaves said, “Some things need to be seen and heard in context […] I don’t know that Rate My Professor gives a full context.” He acknowledges student concerns about transparency, saying, “I understand that some students may have concerns like, ‘Oh, if my instructor is the one that’s communicating back about the feedback, what are they hiding? Are they sharing everything fully?’” 

However, he emphasized that “Student voices [are] heard at different levels. (…) There’s the level of individual instructor[s] improving their course, there’s the assessment of the instructor, and there’s the program improvement piece.” Instructors are encouraged to discuss SLEQ feedback with their classes and explain the reasoning behind instructional and course content decisions. They are also urged to share when feedback has led to course changes, as this makes students feel heard. However, Greaves acknowledges the complexity of this process. “Often students don’t quite have the perspective yet to understand that long-term game plan,” he said.

The Student Learning Experience Feedback within Courses Policy, approved in 2019, was developed with student involvement, but ultimately decided against displaying student data. Greaves noted several factors influencing this decision, including the impact of response rates on data validity and the challenge of ensuring accuracy when simply reporting numbers. Additionally, changes in instructors or course structures can make past data less relevant, making it difficult to present a clear and comprehensive summary. Providing a complete, nuanced picture would be complex and resource-intensive. 

Student feedback is only one part of the overall learning picture, said Greaves, and publishing it alone could be misleading. “Feedback serves a dual purpose”, he continued. “To give instructors formative feedback on their teaching and for renewal, tenure and promotion decisions.” Publishing it without proper context could discourage instructors from experimenting with new, innovative teaching methods, punishing both students and instructors. “Not to speak negatively of other institutions, but I don’t know that there is an institution out there that presents it all in a good and easy-to-read way,” said Greaves. Greaves encourages students to meet with him to discuss any comments or improvements on the SLEQ process, so that he can take that feedback to the decision-making team and find solutions that work for everyone. 

When asked to make a final sales pitch, Greaves said, “Student feedback is generally read [and] is generally taken into consideration, whether you hear back from your instructors or not about what they’ve done. Just know that it is worth your time and worth your effort to put in those few minutes to write something.” 

Don’t forget to complete your SLEQ feedback before 11:59 p.m. on April 4 through Canvas!