Learning and Teaching Committee

Subject: The National Student Survey 2012

Origin: Claire Atkins, Programme Quality and Teaching Partnerships

Introduction

The University will be participating in the National Student Survey (NSS) 2012. The purpose of this paper is to provide Learning and Teaching Committee with a briefing on the NSS 2012 and to encourage Schools to promote the survey to their finalists.

NSS timeline

The survey will run from Monday 6^th February until the end of April at Loughborough University (LU) and will be open throughout the Easter vacation period.

Key contact with students by Ipsos MORI:

• Week 1 (w/c 6 February). Students will receive an email with a direct personal link to the questionnaire.
• Week 2 (w/c 13 February). Reminder emails will be sent to all students who have not completed the survey.
• Week 4 (w/c 27 February). Selected students receive a postal questionnaire (this is unlikely to apply to LU students).
• Week 6 (w/c 12 March). Telephone interviews are attempted with students who have not completed the survey.
• Week 7 (w/c 19 March). Targeted emails are sent to students who have not completed the survey in HEIs/subject areas with low response rates, to ensure the publication threshold is reached.

Promotional activities at LU

A number of promotional activities have taken place at LU with a view to ensuring high response rates. These include:

• Use of NSS branded posters and promotional materials across schools, the Students’ Union, Imago outlets and the Library.
• Use of electronic promotional materials such as e-banners, screensavers, wallpaper and plasma screen presentations across schools, IT Services, the Library, Imago outlets and LEARN.
• Notices for the staff and student noticeboards for the w/c 13 February.

Response rates and results

Throughout the survey weekly updates of response rates will be forwarded to key school staff by the Academic Registry to enable an overview to be kept of how schools are performing against previous years. It is also hoped that by having up-to-date response rates schools will be able to taken action to encourage students to respond where rates are lower than anticipated

Institutional results are received during July with results from other HEI’s following in late July/August. Analysis of the statistical results is provided by the Planning Office and an analysis of the responses to open questions is completed by the Teaching Centre. Externally results are reported on the Unistats website and national newspapers begin to include the results in league tables from the summer.

In order for results to be published in detail a minimum publication threshold of 50% of respondents and 23 respondents in any given subject area is in place.

Action by Schools

Schools are asked to note the NSS timeline and are encouraged to promote the survey to their finalists with a view to maintaining/increasing response rates.