History Department Response to Student Feedback
HSTY1088 Australian History: An Introduction (2006)

Responses to this unit were quite varied. 60% of students expressed overall satisfaction with the unit, in some cases observing that though they had expected to find Australian history dull they were pleasantly surprised by the variety and interest of the themes covered. For some students it was the best and most interesting unit they had yet studied at university, the teaching and feedback stimulating and helpful. Other students were neutral (25%) or, in a minority of cases, dissatisfied, offering a range of reasons which included the desire for a more structured narrative in the unit as a whole, a lighter reading load, more clearly structured lectures, and/or a clearer introduction of content for students without prior knowledge of Australian history.

A number of students commented on the presentation and ordering of the reader, which will accordingly be revised in 2007.

This unit has recently been reviewed within the context of the Australian history curriculum as a whole, and will be taught in a modified and simplified form in 2007, taking careful note of student responses. A new first-year unit in Australian history, covering a wider time period, is to be introduced from 2008.