Resource from ESCalate Education Subject Centre
Students' experience and student feedback
Many Education departments make use of a range of student feedback data including results from the National Student Survey (NSS) to develop their provision and enhance students' experience and ESCalate aims to provide support in this process.
National Student Survey
Since 2005 the National Student Survey (NSS) provides an annual national measure of final year undergraduate students' satisfaction with their courses.
The results of the National Student Survey by institution and course plus other Teaching Quality Information (TQI) data are available on the Unistats site.
ESCalate conducted a research study into how Education departments are using NSS data to enhance their provision and students' experience 'A study of the use of the National Student Survey to enhance the Student Experience in Education Departments'. It found that many Education departments use NSS data contextualised alongside other evaluative information and feedback to review existing procedures and identify and prioritise areas for development. It recommended that Education departments have more opportunities to share practice of using student feedback data for enhancement.
A further report 'An Analysis of the Education Results of the National Student Survey 2009' analyses the 2009 Education NSS results providing evidence about what undergraduate students studying Education think about their experience. It draws out particular issues for practitioners in Education and investigates differences between programmes of study (Teacher Training Education Studies and Combined Courses) between HE and FE gender and UK countries. Please download the report on this page. Overall over 80% of students are satisfied with the quality of their courses in Teacher Training and Education Studies. Assessment and feedback remains the biggest concern for students on all Education programmes however students on Education Studies courses are significantly more satisfied with assessment and feedback students on Teacher Training courses.
National postgraduate student surveys
The national Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) and Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) allow higher education institutions to collect feedback from postgraduate students in a systematic way. Institutions can join benchmarking clubs and compare their results to sector aggregates but PTES and PRES results are not nationally published in the same way as NSS results and are not used for league tables.
Case studies: using feedback data for enhancement
Sharing examples of practice in how Education departments have used student feedback including NSS to enhance students' experiences can support departments' in developing their own strategies. Case studies can be downloaded from the downloads box on the right hand side of this page.
If you have a case study you would like to submit please contact Lyndsay Grant at lyndsay.grant@bristol.ac.uk.
There is no prescribed format for case studies but they should:
- describe what student feedback data was used and how it was interpreted
- explain what enhancement activities were undertaken in response
- if available give any indications of the effectiveness of the activities
- be less than 1000 words.
