Feedback:  How we get it and what we do with it.

As part of our Quality Assurance process, we capture feedback from candidates.  Every service provider will carry out this process but sometimes it is merely a box-ticking exercise.  Even when it is done meaningfully, sometimes the process can actually make it meaningless.

The Traditional Approach

Traditionally Feedback has been sought in one of two ways or a combination of both:

Score Charts

Score Charts ask the customer to rate elements of their experience on a scale between, say, 1-5 or from "poor" to "excellent", for example.  These would provide robust data in a completely objective world but unfortunately for statisticians,  people can’t be expected to behave with complete objectivity.

Unless there was a complete catastrophe, most people can be expected to spread their scores for every element somewhere around 3 to 5; not wanting to cause offensive or for fear of repercussion, by providing anything lower.  This means that whatever the candidate genuinely thought of the course - good or bad - the impression left is that they generally thought it was ‘average’ or ‘above average’.  

Many people don’t like to be too honest and this will always skew the data towards more favourable results.

The other standard response, especially at the end of a long day when they know the course is over and candidates are itching to leave is simply to tick all of the 5s (and maybe a 4, just to make it look like they thought about it). There is no real thought in these responses. These are automatic responses.

Score Charts are commonly used because quantitative information is the easiest to capture but not necessarily the most useful, especially when seeking opinions or looking for qualitative responses.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires offer the candidate the opportunity to express their thoughts or opinion through set questions regarding specific areas typically about the Instructor, the venue, the booking process etc.  The Questionnaire does not always give much scope for candidates to express what they want to.

Generally, priming candidates for information on the Instructor or the venue is really fishing for compliments. Why on earth would you put a poor Instructor in front of candidates or use a sub-standard venue? These should both be a given, so by providing the candidate with a minimum expectation you can easily gain 5 star reviews.

Think about that for a moment.

Is it really that impressive that you used a great Instructor in a clean, spacious classroom and your admin was in order? Or should these be the minimum standard?

There is an opportunity here to find out what would exceed expectation.

No questionnaire would be complete without the "Any other comments" box which is so vague it may as well translate as "We're not really interested so write whatever you want" and this usually yields a dismissive contribution such as “All good”.

Our Previous Feedback Process

From the beginning until 2020 we used an unconventional method of quickly and easily capturing rich information from all of our candidates in a process that allows them to offer not just what we want to know about but what they want us to know about.   It is unbound and not limited to any particular aspect of the course.  It can be answered in short phrases or one-word answers.  It can be done individually or in groups and, importantly, it is anonymous.

Using a flip-chart divided into 4 quarters we asked candidates to comment in each of the following ‘boxes’:

Head - What is the most interesting or important thing you have learned?

Whilst we have our Learning Outcomes and there are certain skills, knowledge and elements of understanding we endeavour to impart on our candidates, are we being too dogmatic? Too evangelical? Are we catering to the desired level of our candidates?

This section reminds us that what is relevant, interesting or important to a skilled practitioner may not be the same as a novice and the commentary here is really what we should be focussing on regarding content.

Heart - What have you enjoyed about the course?

It should be a given that the Instructor is first-rate and the venue is comfortable and conducive to learning so what else makes the course enjoyable? What are the subtle nuances which are harder to plan for or script?

Wish List - In an ideal world, without boundaries, what would make this the greatest course ever?

It is important that this is framed in an ‘ideal world’ without limits. Whilst many of the suggestions will be unrealistic as a consquence, a compromise may be made which could exceed the expectations of a more reasonable request. Or the suggestions may be so left-field they plant the seed of something that would never normally be considered but is entirely implementable.

Bin - What do we need to get rid of?

This should also be unbound and candidates should be afforded the opportunity to contribute openly and honestly because the only feedback worth capturing is honest feedback.

This process generates valuable insight but as a result, it requires much more time and effort to interpret.

Converting qualitative data to quantitative data is a challenge but not impossible with enough time on a spreadsheet, however, the results are invaluable.

From this process, we gleaned important insights which shaped not only the content but also the structure and delivery of our courses.

Our Current Feedback Process

In 2020 we changed how we collected feedback for two reasons:

1. After several thousand responses captured from the previous method, further responses were no more statistically representative and the responses became quite predictable which no longer added value.

2. We aligned our feedback to our ISO9001 Quality Management Statement:

“Real First Aid Ltd aims to deliver practical, pragmatic training which raises both the competences and confidence of our candidates, effectively preparing them to deal with issues in challenging situations.”

Our current Feedback method invites candidates to score their Confidence and Competence before and after the course - this aims to track relative growth in both of these important aspects.

• Confidence: Having all the skills in the world are of little benefit if the Responder does not have the confidence to actually treat a casualty. Recent research from the Resuscitation Council UK estimates only 31% of people in the UK who haven’t been professionally trained on a CPR course are likely to help somebody having a cardiac arrest.

• Competence is the ability to perform these skills to a desired standard. Confidence without competence can be as dangerous, if not more so in some cases, as not treating if Reposnders are acting negligently despite the best of intentions.

Early results from the first 500 candidates show on average our candidates have almost double the confidence (73%) and competence (87%) following our training.

Our intention is to get that mean score to 100% and that requires us not to look at the Learning Outcomes, our admin or our venues but rather, how we shape and deliver our course, our teaching methodologies, our scenarios, debriefing strategies and formative assessment methods

This is the kind of information you will never get from 1-5 Score chart or a copy-and-paste questionnaire.

Since 2010 we have been committed to delivering the best possible First Aid training for those who work in remote, industrial and hostile environments. Since day one we have relied on feedback from our candidates and customers to help us meet that commitment.