Students set to share their views in updated survey

From Monday 30 January, final year undergraduate students will be asked to give their feedback to the nationwide survey about their time at Reading. 

The National Student Survey is the only nationwide, independent survey of students’ views about their university or college experience. 

Survey changes

The Office for Students (OfS), which oversees the survey, announced changes in November 2022, including:

• Changing the format for questions and introducing a different answer scale, and rewording some questions to make them clearer.
• Removing the nationwide compulsory question asking students to rate the quality of their experiences at the University. The OfS believed the question reduced the NSS to a consumer satisfaction survey, with its findings misrepresented in the media. 
• New questions on mental wellbeing and freedom of expression on campus. These are both priorities for the regulator, which is also set to get new powers to regulate how universities and colleges promote free speech.

Support available

The Student Engagement team has met with all Schools for a briefing on the NSS campaign and what the changes to the survey mean for the University. 

These sessions answered some of the more common questions staff have and shared a variety of resources for increasing understanding of the survey and increasing response rates. 

You can visit the NSS Teams channel for more information and advice.

Reading engagement

In our response to the OfS on the changes to the survey, we made it clear that the question on overall satisfaction was helpful to understand how happy students are with the quality of their teaching.

We have therefore decided to keep a version of it as an optional question for our students.

The change to question format also means that we will not be able to make direct comparison of responses with previous years.

Why is the National Student Survey important?

The outcomes of the survey help us to develop our teaching environment, our facilities, and how we can support students in the future. 

It is also important for our national and international reputation, with many league tables factoring survey outcomes into their rankings. 

Last year, we had a good turnout with 2,325 students taking part - a response rate of 72%. 

The National Student Survey will be available at www.thestudentsurvey.com. University of Reading students can respond until 30 April. The outcome will be published in the Summer.