The National Student Survey: A Quick Guide
The National Student Survey is a useful tool to analyse universities around the country and see them graded from the perspective of the people who matter – the students. The results of this survey show the huge amount of information that students have to offer, and it could be their opinion that matters most to you.
Whatever research, facilities and other cool stuff a university might have, it’s not worth anything if every graduate feels like they could have had a better experience somewhere else. Remember, you are paying for your university experience. You are, in some regards, a customer; and like any other customer you should always look for the best value for your money. That’s why the NSS matters – it’s the best way to get feedback from people like you, for you.
You can view the results from the 2015 National Student Survey here on the Higher Education Funding Council for England website.
The survey is split into seven sections for ease of reference: Teaching Quality, Assessment and Feedback, Academic Support, Organisation and Management, Learning Resources, Personal Development and Overall Satisfaction. In addition to this, some universities like to ask their students extra questions about their student experience. The answers to these aren’t shared publicly, and are just for university use.
Once the survey is completed at the end of each academic year, the results are collected together and eventually published on the government’s university statistics website. The results are considered so important because it is one of the best representations of what a university is actually like. Before the NSS, there was very little available in terms of feedback from students about their university and course, other than their grades.
Only final year students are eligible to complete the NSS, and they are required to give their opinions on the entire duration of their course… One lecturer from Kingston has pointed out however, that if students grade their university low, then their degree would be worth less as in effect it downgrades the university. He sadly, does have a point, though.
Let’s take a look at each section of the survey in a bit more detail:
Teaching Quality
This is, of course, enormously important and relevant to students in particular. You can have universities brimming with excellent academics and researchers, but this means very little if they are not good at actually teaching. The official university rankings won’t give you any proof on whether or not the teachers are any good! Are you starting to get why the NSS is such a big deal now?
Assessment and Feedback & Academic Support
These two sections of the survey tie in with the teaching quality of the course and ask similar questions about the way the course is organised and handled. A university can pride themselves on their academic support, but realistically speaking the students perceptions are there to give outsiders the truth (not that the university would lie about the quality of their services)
Organisation and Management & Learning Resources
These two sections are so important. If you are planning on studying a degree which requires the use of certain facilities and resources, you need to pay attention to this section. The quality of your course will be dependent on the resources you have to aid you. You also need to pay attention to how well organised things like lectures, exams and workshops or seminars are. Again, remember that you are paying for this education and so bad organisation is something that you should pick up on. Things like cancelled lectures will be picked up on by existing students, and they probably won’t hesitate with reporting this back via the NSS. Pay careful attention to this when you are weighing up your different university options.
Personal Development
This is erm, a bit of a strange category. It asks questions to the students about their personal development (obviously), which should have been encouraged by the university. You will see lots of questions similar to “do you feel you’ve advanced as a person since you have been at university?” so most of the time it’s a little difficult to judge a university on the personal development of its students. With that said, would you want to study at a university where all of the students saw no personal developments over a three year course? We thought not…
Overall Satisfaction
This final category is without doubt, the most important. It gives a great overview of what students thought of their course and university, and this rating often appears next to the other major categories and is also used as a factor in university ranking tables. The overall satisfaction from your course isn’t the absolute most important thing you should take from university – that, of course, is your degree – but it should sit pretty firmly in second place in terms of importance.
The NSS data along with university league tables offer you a great insight into the quality of teaching and student experience to expect and should provide great assistance in choosing a course and university.
If you are near the end of your studies and want to make your opinions count, you can take part in the 2016 National Student Survey here until the 30th of April, 2016.