It's been another good week for the University of Bath as it rises meteorically from 2nd place to 1st in the Times Higher Education student experience survey (2015). Bath is rated highly by students in all 21 aspects covered by the poll, and performs strongly on the quality of its academic staff, degree courses, links with industry, and teaching facilities. The survey involved 14,697 students from 113 universities.
The 21 aspects that were the focus of the survey were:
- High-quality staff/lectures
- Helpful/interested staff
- Well-structured courses
- Good social life
- Good community atmosphere
- Good extracurricular activities/societies
- Good environment on campus/around university
- High-quality facilities
- Personal requirements catered for
- Good students' union
- Good support/welfare
- Good personal relationship with teaching staff
- Centralised/convenient facilities
- Good industry connections
- Good accommodation
- Good security
- Cheap shop/bar/amenities
- Tuition in small groups
- Good library and library opening hours
- Fair workload
- Good sports facilities
As anyone who reads this blog regularly, I always keep my Kipling to hand when viewing such data. It's certainly always good to wonder about methodology. We're told by the THE that:
"YouthSight is the source of the data that have been used to compile the table of results for the Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey, and it retains ownership of those data. Each higher education institution’s overall score has been indexed to give a percentage of the maximum score attainable. For each of the 21 attributes, students were given a seven-point scale and asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the statements based on their university experience.
When you look at the spreadsheet of results, you find that the number of students responding in each institution is in the low hundreds. At best, it was 307. At worst, it was 51.
Much more significantly, of course, is the missing 22nd issue: "Good for ESD". This is a serious omission which is hard to square with NUS / HEA data showing how much students value sustainability. It may go some way to explain the poor showing in this survey of some of the top 10 people 'n' planet institutions:
- Plymouth (47)
- Worcester (64)
- MMU (74)
- Nottingham Trent (31=)
- City (109)
- Gloucestershire (94)
- Bournemouth (76=)
- Trinity St. David (not included)
- Edinburgh Napier (95)
- Glasgow Caledonian (85)
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