National Student Survey 2014 - encourage your students

Thursday, 30 January 2014

The National Student Survey (NSS) launched earlier this month, and colleagues across the University are maximising their efforts to ensure as many students as possible fill in the survey.

This national initiative, conducted annually since 2005 across almost all UK universities, asks final-year undergraduates to provide feedback on their course.

The NSS really matters - not only because it gives the University an insight into the student experience, but because it is hugely important in telling the outside world about the University of Reading. The results are made publicly available through Unistats to help prospective students make informed decisions about where and what to study, and are used to inform many national league tables.

The University scored 89% ‘overall satisfaction' in 2013. This was above the sector average and was an improvement on the previous year - indeed, thanks to the hard work of staff throughout the whole institution, the University has shown year-on-year improvement across most elements of the survey.

However, although Reading has improved in absolute terms, in ranking terms the University has fallen. The rate of improvement in the sector as a whole since 2005 has been much steeper: Reading is being overtaken.

It is important to encourage all final year students to complete the survey and give their honest feedback. The higher our completion rate, the more rounded a picture we have of how students have found their time at Reading. Last year 69% of students filled it in, exactly the same as for the sector as a whole. We want to beat that this year.

To this end, the University is offering students a simple individual incentive: each final year student who completes the NSS will get a free drink (coffee, tea, hot chocolate or cold non-alcoholic drink) from Cafe Mondial in RUSU.

The NSS - and the incentive - are being promoted in a variety of ways:

• Through posters, social media, emails and artwork across the Whiteknights and London Road campuses.  
• Academics and other staff are telling students about the NSS and encouraging them to take five minutes to fill it in.
• Many Schools and Departments are scheduling completion sessions, devoting 15 minutes at the end of a teaching slot to informing students about the importance of the NSS and asking them to fill it in there and then.
• There will be a marquee on Palmer quad during 3-7 February where students can drop in and complete the survey.

Schools and Departments will get weekly updates on how many of their students have completed the survey - and how this places them on the University ‘leaderboard'!

For more information about the NSS, or for any questions, contact Ruth Collier, Head of Engagement and External Relations (Marketing and Communications), who is co-ordinating the survey this year: ruth.collier@reading.ac.uk, (0118 378) 6748.