Blog
Final Years feedback!
The National Student Survey is the second largest survey carried out on a regular basis in the UK (after the national census no less) and it ranks how students have felt about their time at University. It has a major impact on the University’s profile, being published online for everyone to see on the national unistats site , contributing to the University’s overall ranking in the league tables and directly influencing the actions of departments and the University as a whole. Quite simply it’s the carrot and stick we use to get change and, for departments who engage with it, it’s a vital tool to develop how they deliver your course.
So the results. Overall feedback on York is still overwhelmingly positive. We achieved an overall institutional satisfaction of 86%, and many deparments are approaching the upper limits nationally. The movement in this year’s NSS results, however, was broadly disappointing for York. Only four of the published departments increased their overall scores this year, our overall satisfaction dropped and we fell, both absolutely and relative to other Universities in every area aside from assessment and feedback, where some departments in particular have made massive strides this year. This comes at a time when, with a turbulent higher education sector, York is stable: we should be making substantial progress in both our NSS results and our ranking, as a top ten institution with a teaching focus we should be aiming at top 5 in the NSS, we are currently 31st overall.
This is not a collapse: we’ve come from a high base (exceptionally high in some departments) and a lot of the falls we’ve seen this year are related to the difficulties with the Library and timetabling: It’s great news that the timetabling office has revolutionised its ways of working and the new Library looks fantastic, even if only the second floor is open so far (it’ll be finished by December 2012) alongside a fantastic new learning space opening in Easter in the old computer science building.
Three of the four departments that saw increases shot up this year: with increases of 13, 18 and 19 percent of students agreeing that they were satisfied with their course. These departments, Linguistics, Environment and Education, have really taken the NSS seriously this year and they’ve seen the benefits; we hope others will follow. We've also seen 10 departments hold overall satisfaction ratings of above 90%, Archeology and Linguistics topping the rankings in assessment and feedback and teaching and we reached an overall top ten position for the uni on teaching on my course.
The challenges laid out in the NSS data are both general and specific: Your course reps will be pouring over departmental information to see what specific changes need to be made. We’ll be supporting those changes and, in some cases, going into those departments with next year’s reps to push changes where they're falling behind.
There’s a lot more though. This year we’ve got a real opportunity to push for changes across the University: In the quality of feedback, the support you get in looking for employment, information and flexibility of module choices, the facilities available to you online to help with your studies…and wherever you see changes need to be made.
York’s student satisfaction is still high, and it reflects the fact that it’s a great university with some fantastic departments. These stats give us the opportunity to make it better, challenge where its falling down and inspire exciting changes at York.
If you want to be part of those changes there are going to be loads of opportunities to take part this year: whether as a course rep, faculty rep, in a departmental society…wherever. If you’re interested in hearing more about the areas we’re trying to make changes in drop me an email to b.humphrys@yusu.org and I’ll fill you in!!
