Imperial falls in student experience survey

Imperial has dropped nine places from last year in the Times Higher Education (THE) Student Experience Survey to take joint 71st place with Canterbury Christ Church University. The University of Dundee topped the survey with a score of 85% while Imperial scored 73.4%, slightly lower than the average of 75.1%.

Imperial scored in the lowest quartile of universities in the categories ‘helpful/interested staff’, ‘good social life’, ‘good community atmosphere’, ‘personal requirements catered for’, ‘good personal relationships with teaching staff’, and ‘tuition in small groups’. The College also obtained the lowest score out of all universities for ‘fair workload’ and a lower than average score in the category ‘I would recommend my university to a friend.’

However, Imperial scored highly in the categories ‘good sports facilities’, ‘good library and opening hours’, ‘good industry connections’ and ‘high quality facilities’.

The survey gathered the views of over 13,000 undergraduates from 105 UK universities who were recruited through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). Students were asked to rate 21 aspects of university life on a seven-point scale. Each aspect was then assigned a weighting by examining the factors most closely correlated with good scores in the category ‘I would recommend my university to a friend.’ The average number of respondents from each university was just 132.

Scott Heath, ICU President, said, “What we have to remember is that lots of surveys are based on people’s perceptions, expectations and opinions. These are always difficult to turn into comparable data sets.’

He added that, “The union has been working with the College to help improve the community feel. This will be realised in investments in common rooms, the changes to the Holland Club and a greater Union focus on activities like buddying.

“Workload has also been a personal campaign point. I felt during my degree that I was doing work for the sake of doing work, that I was over-assessed and often asked to do something that didn’t test or practice a new skill. We have been encouraging departments to use a flow-chart which originated in Engineering to ‘test’ whether assessments are necessary and see whether you can get people to develop their skills with less time-consuming activities.”

I think Imperial has scored highly in most places that we’d expect Richard Bennett – ISE

Richard Bennett, an ISE student, said, “I think Imperial has scored highly in most places that we’d expect such as industry connections and facilities which, in my humble opinion, are some of the most important factors for academic success. However, the one point that worries me is the low score in the category ‘I would recommend my university to a friend’, which shows most of all that Imperial students are possibly not enjoying their university experience.”

Third year biologist, Joe Herbert, commented that, “Imperial can never achieve the same standard of social life as universities which demand less work but people come to Imperial knowing they will have to work hard for a worthwhile degree.”

He added that, “If you want to spend your whole time with your head in a book, that’s your choice. Social life is what you make of it.”

London universities generally scored poorly with the highest ranking institution in the city being St George’s of the University of London at 27th position. UCL took 49th position, King’s College took 55th while LSE was behind Imperial at 85th position.

Oxford and Cambridge took fourth and fifth positions, respectively. Oxford was found to have the best quality staff and lectures, and both obtained very high scores in the category “I would recommend my university to a friend.” However, similarly to Imperial, both scored low on “fair work load”.

The THE editor, John Gill, said, “While universities must never put the student experience before academic concerns, its value to undergraduates cannot be underestimated. We hope this year’s survey will help universities to raise their game, learn from the best and meet the challenges of higher expectations and greater “consumer” demand.”

Imperial was placed 8th in the THE World University Rankings for 2011-12 and 10th in The Guardian University league table.

With thanks to Matt Allinson and Philip Kent for additional data analysis.