The National Student Survey 2012

The eighth National Student Survey (NSS) runs this year from 23 January until 30 April 2012. The survey is organised nationally and is aimed at students in their final year. This means all University of York 2012 finalists are being asked to take part.

The results help us to identify areas where we need to make further progress to enhance our students’ teaching and learning experiences. This year, 2012 NSS results will feature even more prominently in published information and will be included in the Key Information Set which will be published on departmental webpages.

We are asking all eligible students to take part and we are asking all student facing staff to help publicise the NSS throughout the duration of the survey. The following information is to help staff and students to understand more about the NSS and offers advice on promoting the need to complete the survey.

NSS information for staff

The survey is commissioned by Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and is conducted by Ipsos Mori. All undergraduate and nurse-training finalists studying at English, Welsh, Northern Irish and some Scottish universities will be asked for their views on:

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  • the quality of the teaching and assessment on their course;
  • personal development and support they have experienced;
  • organisation and management within their department; and
  • the quality of, and access to, learning resources.

There is a standard set of 22 questions which all students will be asked to answer. We have also added two further banks of questions and one institutional question, which students will be asked to complete after they have submitted their answers to the standard 22 questions.

The survey can be accessed by going to www.thestudentsurvey.com a copy of the survey can be found below.

The response rate

Last year, our response rate increased to 74 percent from 60 percent in 2010 (the sector average in 2011 was 65 percent) and many individual departments saw significant improvements in their response rates compared with the year before. This is very encouraging and in order to maintain this response rate this year, we are calling on all staff to help promote the survey to final year students The higher the response rate, the more representative and meaningful the results we get back.

Ipsos Mori will contact students with initial requests to complete the survey and will send reminders throughout the survey period to students who have not yet responded.

We have produced a guide for staff to help communicate the survey to students which contains general advice and key suggested messages. NSS 2012 communicating with students (PDF , 329kb)

About the results

The survey closes on 30 April 2012. We expect to be able to preview the results in August. As in past years analysis and commentary on the results will be sent to Chairs of Boards of Studies prior to their publication on the Unistats website.

We use the NSS results, together with other feedback from students, staff and external examiners, to highlight where departments and the University are doing well and to inform plans for quality improvement. Students use the results to help inform their choice of university and so the 2012 NSS results will help influence the 2013 potential applicants.

For further information

NSS information for students

The 2012 National Student Survey is running from 23 January until 30 April 2012.

The survey can be found at www.thestudentsurvey.com  Please note: when you go to the survey you will be asked to put your institution. Please put 'York'. The University will then be available as an option. The 'University of York' is not recognised.

If you are a final year full-time or part-time student studying at York you are eligible to take part.

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If you are eligible to take part you will be contacted by Ipsos Mori via email during the early weeks of the survey.

If you have not completed the survey you may later be contacted by post or ultimately by telephone.

Please complete the survey: your feedback is valued by your department and the University and is used to inform improvements and changes to the courses and support services offered by the University.

You should complete the survey honestly and carefully. Your answers are used to create a satisfaction rating in respect of each question in the survey. Whatever score you give, we would encourage you to make use of the open comments section so that we can better understand your response and use this to feed back into our continuous improvement processes.

For every survey completed we will donate £1 to the student hardship fund.

The results of the survey will be made available from August / September time on the Unistats website www.unistats.com

Thank you for taking part.