What is the National Student Survey?
The 2019 NSS is the 15th national survey of undergraduate students. Conducted annually it is commissioned by the Office for Students (OfS) and independently run by Ipsos MORI. Universities, Colleges and alternative providers take part in the survey.
When is the survey open to students?
The survey is available nationally from Monday 7 January 2019 and will be launched at the University on
Monday 28 January. The survey will close at midnight on Tuesday 30 April.
Students’ eligibility to complete the survey
Eligibility criteria is set by the OfS, in exceptional circumstances we may be able to ask for students to be added or removed from the survey population if they have changed their programme of study since the submission of our HESA data. Please contact Gabrielle Latham (ext. 4980) to discuss this further.
Eligibility criteria
Students are included in the 2019 survey population if they are expected to complete their course between 1 February 2019 and 31 January 2020 inclusive.
Final year students and equivalent:
•Students expected to be in their final year.
•Students on flexible programmes where the final year cannot be predicted, after they are expected to have undertaken more than one full-time equivalent (FTE) and not before their fourth academic year of study.inal year students and equivalent:
Students with the following funding arrangements:
•Students on Initial Teacher Training courses funded by the National College for Teaching and Leadership.
•Students studying NHS-funded subjects.
•All students studying on directly funded, prescribed Higher Education courses at FECs and FEIs.
However, the following are not eligible:
•Students on programmes that do not lead to undergraduate qualifications or credits.
•Students on a course lasting one year or one FTE or less.
•Any students who were eligible in the NSS 2018 (whether or not they responded) and who remain at the same institution.
Why is it important for students to complete the survey?
The survey provides the opportunity for final year students to give their opinions on what they liked about their course as well as areas they feel could be improved upon.
The NSS is widely recognised as a key measure of student satisfaction and as such the results are publically available and highly visible, e.g. on Unistats to inform prospective students about where and what to study.
A high response rate is important as it ensures the information published about the University’s courses is representative. We will also receive valuable student feedback which highlights areas of student satisfaction as well as areas where we can improve their experience.
What is asked on the Survey?
The survey is made up of two parts. Core questions which are asked nation-wide, and Optional questions which are chosen by individual institutions.
Confidentiality
The survey respects the privacy of those taking part, and as such individual responses are confidential and at no point will students be indentified to their institution.
Who administers the survey?
The NSS is undertaken independtly by Ipsos Mori, who have conducted the survey since 2005 on behalf of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and key partners. Ipsos Mori contact students by email and telephone to collect the survey responses. For more information on Ipsos Mori.
What happens to the data?
Weekly response reports are made available by Ipsos Mori. Student Engagement, Evaluation and Research (STEER) monitor the response rates and disseminate response reports across the University during the collection period. Once the survey has closed, STEER are responsible for the cleansing and coding of student comments in the survey.
