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Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the National Student Survey?

The NSS asks mostly final year undergraduate students to provide feedback on their courses in a nationally recognised format. The questions asked relate to the following subheadings:

  1. teaching on my course
  2. assessment and feedback
  3. academic support
  4. organisation and management
  5. learning resources
  6. personal development
  7. overall satisfaction.

Students who are on an NHS funded course will also be asked questions relating to the following subheading:

NHS practice placements.

Additionally, you will be given the opportunity to write in a positive and/or negative comment on your student experience.

Some institutions have opted to ask their students additional questions If you are a student at one such institution you will be asked to complete these questions after completing the main questionnaire. This will be done via the online methodology only. This is not obligatory, so if you do not wish to take part you can decline the invitation to complete these extra questions.

In addition to these questions, some institutions have chosen to add an institution specific question of their choice, as they are particularly interested in getting feedback on this area. Students are given the choice of whether they want to continue on to complete this question at the end of the main NSS. If you choose not to complete this question, then your responses to the main NSS will still be taken into account. The institutional specific question is only asked if you are completing the survey online.

These extra questions should take a maximum of five minutes to complete. The answers to these questions will only be provided to participating student's institution and students' unions as the questions are designed to enhance the experience for future students. Therefore, these particular results will not be publicly available.

This information is then used to provide institutions with valuable data on areas for improvement and assist prospective students in making informed choices about which course to do and at what institution.

The NSS is a national initiative and has been conducted annually since 2005. The survey runs across all publicly funded institutions in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, participating institutions in Scotland. Additionally, from 2008 onwards if you are a student at a further education college studying on a higher education course (such as a foundation degree) in England you can also participate.

The feedback provided by eligible students will be published on the Unistats website www.unistats.com.

2. Who commissions the survey?

The survey has been commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), supported by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and the Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland (DEL). These bodies have a statutory role in ensuring the quality of teaching in higher education is assessed, and believe that students' views should form an important part of the assessment.

Ipsos MORI, an independent market research agency, administers the survey. The survey is fully supported by the NUS, NUS-Wales, and NUS-USI.

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3. When and how does it take place?

The online survey is live from 7 January 2008. Eligible students will receive an e-mail by the end of February 2008, inviting them to complete the survey online. However, if you have not yet received an e-mail, and fit the description outlined under Who will be asked to take part? then you can complete the survey today — see How do I take part?

Ipsos MORI will follow up non-respondents to the online survey by post and telephone in order that we collect the views of as many students as possible; the more feedback we receive the more information is available for potential students when making choices about what and where to study.

The results from the 2008 survey will be published on the Unistats website (www.unistats.com) in summer 2008. The site has been developed as a one-stop-shop for official information about the quality and standards of higher education. Applicants seeking to start a course in the next academic year are able to use the site to help inform their choices.

At the end of the survey, anonymised results will also be fed back to institutions and students unions to help them identify how they can make improvements.

4. Who will be asked to take part?

All students studying undergraduate courses (Bachelors degrees, foundation degrees, higher education certificates and diplomas) will be surveyed in their final year of study. All students at further education colleges studying these undergraduate courses in England will also be surveyed in their final year of study. A number of exceptions to this description are detailed below:

The survey is being carried out across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Some institutions in Scotland have also chosen to take part in the survey this year. The institutions taking part are:

In addition, the University of Buckingham has also chosen to take part.

NHS funded students took part in the survey for the first time in 2007 and will continue to do so in the 2008 survey. The same questionnaire is used, however these students will be asked additional questions covering their experiences during their NHS practice placement(s). These students are therefore asked to complete the survey via the online method only.

If you are not sure whether you are eligible to take part you may still complete the survey, Ipsos MORI will check and validate your response. All eligible final year undergraduate students who have not completed the survey will be contacted by Ipsos MORI by April 2008 at the latest.

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5. What is being asked?

The questionnaire asks students the extent to which they agree with a series of statements about their course and institution. The main questionnaire consists of twenty-two questions that are divided up into the following subheadings:

  1. Teaching on my course,
  2. Assessment and feedback,
  3. Academic support,
  4. Organisation and management,
  5. Learning resources,
  6. Personal development,
  7. Overall satisfaction.

In addition, there are two boxes marked 'Positive' and 'Negative' in which students may write in relevant comments not covered by the questions.

Students on NHS funded courses will also be asked about their practice placements.

Overall, the questionnaire is quick and easy to complete.

Students from some institutions may be asked to complete some additional questions at the end of the online survey. This is not obligatory and students are able to decline the invitation to complete these extra questions. The extra questions should take a maximum of five minutes to complete.

In addition to these questions, some institutions have chosen to add an institution specific question of their choice as they are particularly interested in getting feedback on this area. Students are given the choice of whether they want to continue on to complete this question at the end of the main NSS. If you choose not to complete this question, then your responses to the main NSS will still be taken into account. The institutional specific question is only asked if you are completing the survey online.

The answers to these questions will only be provided to participating student's institution and students' unions as the questions are designed to enhance the experience for future students. Therefore, these particular results will not be publicly available.

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6. Who has access to students' contact details?

Participating institutions have passed contact details for eligible students to Ipsos MORI, the research agency responsible for carrying out the survey.

Ipsos MORI is a member of the Market Research Society and all details and responses will be handled in full accordance with data protection legislation.

Student personal data will be used only for the purposes of the NSS, and contact details will be destroyed at the end of the survey.

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7. Are the results confidential?

Yes, results will only be presented in the form of statistical summaries reported by institution, subject or department. These summaries will only be presented where there are enough responses to preserve individuals' anonymity.

Ipsos MORI and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) will keep all individual responses confidential. At no point will individual students participating in the survey be identified to their institution.

For further details about how students' responses to the survey will be handled, please see the Privacy Statement.

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8. How do I take part?

If you are:

  1. A final year undergraduate in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or possibly Scotland (depending on whether your institution in Scotland has chosen to take part or not) studying at Higher Education Institutions (see FAQ No. 19).
  2. A final year undergraduate at a Further Education College in England (see FAQ No. 19).
  3. A part time student (or a student on a flexible programme of study) in their fourth year of study at a Higher Education Institution in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or possibly Scotland (depending on whether your institution in Scotland has chosen to take part or not) (see FAQ No. 19).
  4. A part time student (or a student on a flexible programme of study) in their fourth year of study at a further education college in England (see FAQ No. 19).
  5. For a full description see Who will be asked to take part?

… then you may complete the survey by clicking on this link to Enter Survey.

You will be asked for some personal data in order to verify that you are eligible to take part. Please provide all the information requested, as your responses will only be taken into account if all your personal information is accurate. If your personal information is not accurate we may re-contact you to validate your response. Once you have completed the survey you should not be contacted again or receive further reminders.

The online survey is linked to a live database of eligible students. Our database is updated on a regular basis. If you still receive a reminder, this may be because we could not match the details you supplied to the ones supplied by your institution or because there was some overlap between when you sent your response (for example by post) and when we re-contacted you. We will attempt to contact you by email, then if we have no response from you, by post and then by telephone.

We would like to assure you that your privacy will be respected. The survey results will not be attributed to individual students. The survey results will only be reported by institution, subject or department.

If you provide comments at the end of the questionnaire, we may pass these on, anonymously, to your institution to help them identify how they can make improvements. To preserve your anonymity, please avoid making comments that could enable you as an individual to be identified.

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9. Can I opt out of the survey?

Yes, if for some reason you do not wish to take part, you can opt-out of the survey.

At any stage that Ipsos MORI e-mails or contacts you directly you can reply and say you do not wish to take part. You will not then be contacted again. You must actively opt out if you do not wish to be surveyed; not responding to either the email, postal questionnaire or the telephone interview does not constitute an opt out. We need to be sure of the identity of the student opting out therefore we ask for the same identification information as for those responding to the survey.

To opt out of the survey now, click on Enter Survey and you will be asked whether you wish to take part in the survey. If you do not wish to take part simply click 'no'. Please note you will be asked for some information to verify your identity.

10. How long will Ipsos MORI be holding this data? When will the data be destroyed?

Contact details will be removed from all computer systems by Ipsos MORI once they are no longer needed for contacting students about the NSS, and by May 2008 at the latest.

Ipsos MORI will pass on all other data (including students' responses) to HEFCE by July 2008, and will only hold anonymised data until the reporting process is completed. No data will be held beyond that.

HEFCE will use this data for analysis, and will use contracted researchers who will have access to the data for a specified period in order to conduct the analysis and provide aggregated feedback to institutions. These researchers will destroy the data once the project has been completed. HEFCE will retain the data for any further or ongoing research, as they do for other personal data (such as Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) records and DHLE data).

11. How will the data be stored?

HEFCE will not receive any student contact details. They will store other data (students' responses linked to Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) student records) electronically on a secure system, in the same way that other personal data (such as HESA records and DHLE data) is stored.

12. Where did Ipsos MORI get my contact details from?

Student details have been passed on to Ipsos MORI by your institution under HEFCE's authority. Ipsos MORI have been commissioned to conduct the National Student Survey, and will be using students' details for the purposes of the National Student Survey only. All students' details will be removed from Ipsos MORI's computer systems when the project has been completed.

Please read the full Privacy Statement on the NSS for more details.

13. I have already completed the survey and I recently received a reminder. Do I have to complete it again?

There may be three reasons for this:

  1. We have not received your completed questionnaire; please complete the survey again if you think we should have received it by now.
  2. We could not match your details to the NSS database (which contains all students who are eligible to take part) to validate your response. We need to ensure that the response we received is from you in order to validate it. Please complete the survey again and provide accurate identification information to allow us to validate your response. Though if you are completing the survey online, scope for re-contact should be very low as the survey is linked to a live database of eligible students.
  3. There was an overlap between when you sent your response (for example by post) and us updating our database when we sent a reminder to you. We update our database on a daily basis throughout the survey period to limit this occurrence but some respondents do slip through. Please complete the survey again if you think we should have received it by now.

14. I am not a final year student and I received an invitation to take part in the National Student Survey. Do I need to take part in the survey?

There are a few exceptions where some students who may not be in their final year are included in the NSS. Therefore, if you have been contacted by Ipsos MORI to take part in the survey, you are eligible and we would like to receive your response.

15. I have entered my date of birth but it will not allow me to log in to the survey, why not?

Please ensure that you have entered your date of birth in the following format, DD/MM/YYYY (e.g. 18/04/1987). Also include the "/" signs when typing in your information.

16. I completed the survey in 2007 — why have I been asked to fill it in again?

If you have been contacted to complete the survey this year you are eligible and we would like you to complete the survey. It may be that you were not eligible last year and that you were included in error. Your responses last year would not have been taken into account.

17. How have the results from the three previous years been used?

Previous years' results are available to institutions and students unions who use them to identify areas to improve the experience for future students. In addition the 2007 NSS results are available on the Unistats website (www.unistats.com). The results assist prospective students in making an informed choice of what to study and where.

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18. Why have I been asked different questions to other people?

Some institutions have chosen to ask their students some additional questions. Institutions are given the choice of a set of twelve additional question modules covering different areas to the main survey. Institutions are allowed to choose up to five of these additional modules. Some institutions have chosen not to ask any additional modules. Students are given the choice of whether they want to continue on to complete these additional modules at the end of the main NSS. If you choose not to complete the additional modules, which should take approximately five minutes, then your responses to the main NSS will still be taken into account. The additional question modules are only asked if you are completing the survey online.

In addition to these questions, some institutions have chosen to add an institution specific question of their choice as they are particularly interested in getting feedback on this area. Students are given the choice of whether they want to continue on to complete this question at the end of the main NSS. If you choose not to complete this question, then your responses to the main NSS will still be taken into account. The institutional specific question is only asked if you are completing the survey online.

Students on NHS funded courses undertake practice placements, so their experience of Higher Education is slightly different. Therefore, in addition to the standard 22 questions, NHS funded students are asked additional questions covering their NHS practice placements.

19. Institutions taking part in the NSS 2008.

Higher Education Institutions

Further Education Colleges

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