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Hints and tips for achieving strong response rates to Advance HE student surveys

17 Jan 2022 | Naomi Hepton and Lorraine Slater Naomi Hepton, Education and Student Experience Officer, and Lorraine Slater, Communications & Researcher Development Officer at University of Brighton, share their good practice tips from their experience of running the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) with Advance HE’s Maddie Pitkin.

Maddie Pitkin, Research and Insights Executive at Advance HE, working across all aspects of our student surveys says, 

We are keen that institutions participating in our student surveys receive a high level of response because achieving strong response rates makes the survey more effective for enhancement across the institution. The more students that take part in the survey, the more meaningful the data. A strong response rate gives greater confidence and statistical robustness to results and makes it possible to deliver results at levels relevant to staff delivering teaching and learning.  

“University of Brighton achieved a particularly strong response to PRES last year and they have very kindly agreed to share their experiences, hints and tips as to how they achieved their high response rate. They have found that the move to remote learning as a result of the pandemic has improved communication and engagement for postgraduate researchers (PGRs) as they are often remote learners or not campus-based. This has provided increased opportunity to engage PGRs with the PRES.”

Promotion ahead of the survey launch 

During the build-up period to the survey, the University increases the promotion of the importance of sharing feedback and how it uses the student voice. 

PGR student representatives are asked to promote the survey amongst the cohort, and a small piece relating to PRES is published on the PGR blog.  

Senior school staff and doctoral supervisors are alerted to PRES and its importance via email, University newsletter and an article on the University staff intranet. Supervisors in particular are asked to help to raise awareness of the survey and encourage participation. 

Marketing the survey  

Digital artwork is used to promote participation in the survey across a range of media, including a banner embedded into staff email signatures during the fieldwork period. The artwork is matched to the wider University ‘Your Voice Matters’ campaign which ties all student surveys together and promotes positive use of student voice in shaping the University.  

In all communications about the survey, a friendly tone is used to encourage participation. University of Brighton actively avoids any references to ‘metrics’ or ‘benchmarking’ and ensures that the focus is instead on ‘contributing to an improved student experience’. After the survey closes, post-survey communications express thanks and gratitude to students for participating. 

University of Brighton does offer a financial incentive for survey participation but does not actively promote it. It’s referenced on posters and banners, but the focus of the marketing campaign is the importance of sharing your feedback.  

Although the University doesn’t use social media as one of its main campaign tools to encourage participation in PRES, the Doctoral College Twitter account has a good PGR community and is used to promote the survey.  

Circulating the survey 

Personalised emails are sent from, or on behalf of, staff to those students they are familiar with, rather than central mailing addresses. The Marketing and Communications teams work to tailor central emails so the ‘sent from’ and ‘subject’ lines look like they are from staff in key roles both at the University and within the student's own school.  

PGRs at the institution have a good relationship with academic staff and these colleagues therefore promote participation in the survey as a means of sharing experiences. At periodic points throughout the survey fieldwork period, response rate updates are sent to academic staff working with PGRs, to help targeted promotion. 

The frequency of emails is controlled to reduce survey and email fatigue on students. Personalised survey links are used in formal email communications (rather than a generic link which students would need a username and password to access) to make the survey as easily accessible as possible and decrease survey completion time. Once students have completed the survey, they are removed from the central mailing list so they don’t receive any further formal reminders.  

Generic links are also used, but as additional campaign support in digital artwork (eg with a message inviting students to 'click to enter'), in more general survey-related publications, and in informal reminders 

Informal and ‘gentle’ reminders are generally issued within email communications containing a range of PGR-related content. 

University of Brighton holds weekly doctoral studies workshops and slides from the PRES slide-deck (provided by Advance HE) along with the generic survey link are shown to encourage participation. These meetings are hosted virtually and the PRES slides with link are used as a place holder while students are waiting for a session to start.  

 

Naomi is Education and Student Experience Officer at University of Brighton, working in the Evaluation and Policy Department. Lorraine is Communications and Researcher Development Officer at University of Brighton, working in the Doctoral College.   

Find out more 

If your institution is interested in participating in PRES, PTES and/or UKES this year, you can download an information pack here

Please contact surveys@advance-he.ac.uk if you have any questions.

Working with the Insights team

Have you met our newly formed Insights team? Our Insights team can provide qualitative, quantitative or mixed-method offers, underpinned by sector-wide datasets from student surveys and our sector-leading higher education statistical reports. Find out more and meet the team.

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