Undergraduates invited to take part in this year's National Student Survey
The National Student Survey, which was boycotted by several other student unions last year, has opened for final year undergraduates.
Students have this week been invited to take part in the annual National Student Survey (NSS), through which they can give feedback about their course.
The survey, which is open to all final year undergraduates, opened on the 8th January, and will run until the end of April. Last year’s NSS saw a successful boycott by a number of UK universities, who cited concerns about links to increasing tuition fees.
Last year’s NSS results showed a wide range in student satisfaction, with the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Aerospace Engineering coming under heavy fire. Overall Imperial placed 74th in terms of satisfaction, placing it level with Cardiff and Hull. Imperial received particularly poor response for feedback and assessment – overall, fewer than half of physics students surveyed felt marking was fair or feedback timely.
In an email sent out to students, Professor Simone Buitendijk, Imperial’s Vice-Provost (Education), and Nick Burstow, Imperial College Union’s Deputy President (Education), asked final year students to complete the survey online. They said the NSS gives students “a chance to leave a lasting impact on Imperial” after they left the university, and their responses would “help the College see both where it is excelling but also where it can improve”.
“Last year's NSS saw the Physics Department coming under fire”
The NSS last year was marked by a boycott, which saw twelve universities omitted after they failed to reach a 50% participation rate – the minimum requirement for inclusion. Universities omitted included UCL, Oxford, and Cambridge, with UCL seeing a 30% year-on-year drop in participation. Imperial’s final participation rate was 74%, which Buitendijk and Burstow described as “a figure we hope to beat this year”.
The boycott was organised in response to concerns that NSS scores would be linked to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), an awards scheme that would have allowed universities to raise their tuition fees in line with inflation. In October, however, Theresa May announced plans to freeze tuition fees at a maximum of £9,250 until 2019.
The NSS is sent out every year to all final year undergraduates at UK higher education institutions. It asks 27 questions across a number of domains, such as “Assessment and Feedback”. It is commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), and undertaken by Ipsos MORI.
