Rapid Educational Improvements Using Wyblo: Insights from Continuous Student Feedback

In the world of higher education, teaching evaluations from students do not generally allow professors to directly improve their teaching method, as changes would have an impact only on the next course and on a different group of students. This happens because the evaluation is typically done at the end of the course and the instructors receive the feedback after the semester has ended and it is too late to adjust. For this study, we examine Wyblo, a mobile application that offers students the chance to provide anonymous event-sampling feedback to their teachers, by asking them about specific pedagogical aspects for the teacher, who will then then take corrective actions based on their students' specific needs. The aim of this study is to understand professors' perception of the use of a continuous feedback tool. The intention is to discover if professors find an added value in receiving event-sampling feedback from their students. As a more general purpose, we aim at providing scientific validity to the usage of the Wyblo App in higher education. We conducted an empirical qualitative research to answer the following research question: How do teachers feel about using a continuous feedback tool with interactive dashboards and open comments? The collaborative approach adopted allowed us to comprehend the professors' insights on the usage of continuous feedback from students, all while enhancing the teaching quality. We conducted about 20 interviews with selected professors who have used the Wyblo app in their course. Our results provide support for the value of this entrepreneurial project. According to the professors, continuous feedback from students is an efficient solution to educational problems. For instance, it helps by: focusing on the learning needs; enhancing classroom interactivity, both in the classroom and online environments; gaining information about students' personality and work style; monitoring motivational and emotional factors. The value of this research lies in the pedagogical underpinnings that it contributes to providing to the Wyblo App, allowing teachers to utilize a validated tool for improving teaching quality. Moreover, this work can be the springboard for further studies on continuous feedback through digital technologies. © 2021, Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. All rights reserved.