Research Guide
Why research? It’s simple: you need to know what students are thinking and feeling to support and represent them effectively. Before embarking on any research project, make sure your project meets these criteria:
Introduction The enhancement of the student experience relies on good quality, widespread feedback from everyday students, and students’ unions – it aids quality enhancement through student written submissions, strengthens campaigns, and it can inform your plans, priorities and direction. Students’ unions have access to a wealth of information at their fingertips, for example data from the National Student Survey and the HSBC Student Experience Survey, as well as internal sources of data. However, to really find out how your students are feeling, it’s often necessary to conduct your own research to fill the gaps that these create and give you a good overview of the whole student perspective. It’s important that the work should not stop once the data has been analysed and the focus groups transcribed. Unions must be proactive in disseminating the results of their research to their students as well as embedding them in their campaigns to show students that their time and effort giving their feedback has resulted in identifiable outcomes and real valued changes. It is important to show them that what they said really did make positive things happen. We hope this guide offers you an introduction into researching the student experience at your institution, and that your research aids you in continuing to make concrete changes to enhance the student experience. You can find the complete NUS research guide by visiting the HE Policy Corner page on NUS Connect.
It’s useful– the results of your research should allow you to take real action, give you direction or the ability to make practical, positive developments on the basis of your results. It’s relevant – your research should be relevant to the significant section of the student population. It’s necessary– you should feel that allocating time and resources to will be in the best interests of students. Students will be reluctant to give their opinions on issues that don’t really matter to them or that yield irrelevant results.
Are you about to start a research project? Think through your plans by remembering that the research cycle can be split into these four phases: Planning, preparing and testing. Analysing and developing your results. Taking action. Feeding back to students. The process of collecting student feedback should not be regarded as an end in itself. The ultimate aim of delivering real, useful, valued and perceptible outcomes for students based on your research should be at the heart of your research project. Ensure that you can dedicate sufficient time and resources to each of the four areas above to ensure you are best prepared to achieve meaningful and successful research.
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Planning, preparing, testing
http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/ PUBLICATIONS/Pages/Default.aspx Office for National Statistics
As important as finding out what you don’t know, is establishing what you already know. This should be undertaken at the start of your research.
The Office for National Statistics collects demographic and census data on the UK population as well as information from public bodies and departments.
Students’ unions often have access to a wealth of pre-existing information about the student experience, publicly, internally and at their institution. Make sure you have a look at the following information:
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ neighbourhood-statistics.asp
Your National Student Survey results Students’ unions have access to a level of detail that is unavailable to the public and consistent with that of your institution, and these findings can be used to provide combined support for campaigns. Internal institutional surveys. Institutional policies and practices. Institutional demographic data.
The International Students’ Barometer/ i-graduate. Financial accounts and funding reports, bursary take-up rate. Complaints procedures and academic appeals. Reports from student services on campus.
Prospectuses and university website. Past QAA audits reports. For external information which may useful for your own research the following places may be useful: HESA
HESA collects a vast amount of raw data on students dating as far back as 1994, which can be publicly accessed on their website. http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php/component/ option,com_datatables/Itemid,121/ Universities UK
Universities UK produce a number of publications on a variety of subjects affecting students and institutions.
Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL)
The CEL is a public body supporting the development of quality in leadership in further education colleges, conducting research. http://www.centreforexcellence.org.uk/ default.aspx?Page=ResearchPublications Higher Education Academy (HEA)
The HEA conducts research into a variety of areas affecting education quality, and produces summary publications of their results. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ ourwork/research Postgraduate Taught or Research Experience Survey (PTES/PRES)
Your institution may have taken part in the Postgraduate Taught or Research Experience Surveys in the past few years, and if so there will be data available about the postgraduate student experience at your institution. http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/ supportingresearch/postgraduatework Futuretrack
This project, commissioned by the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HECSU) looks into the experiences of 130,000 students over 5 years before, during and after of HE, that applied to study in institutions across the UK. www.futuretrack.ac.uk NUS Student Experience Report
The NUS HSBC Student Experience Report 2008 and 2009 looks at UK students’ experiences and expectations before and during their studies looking at all areas of the student experience.
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http://www.recordingachievement.org/newsand-events/most-recent/127-nus-studentexperience-report-2008-.html Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)
HEPI aims to inform policy and practice in higher education and produces publications including The academic experience of students in English universities, and those on topics such as postgraduate study, non completion case studies and widening participation. http://www.hepi.ac.uk Mission groups – The Russell Group and The 1994 Group
These groups concentrate on embedding quality in HE through informing policy making and producing reports and comparisons. http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/ policy-statements.html UK HE International Unit
The UK HE International Unit has been established to coordinate, promote and undertake activities designed to support UK HEIs in a globally competitive world. http://www.international.ac.uk/ our_research_and_publications/index.cfm http://www.1994group.ac.uk/latestnews.php JISC
JISC conducts research on how information technology can support and aid learners. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS)
BIS has produced publications on promoting good campus relations and safeguarding in HEI’s, to name a few. http://www.bis.gov.uk/ League Tables
The press often take published research and use this to benchmark institutions. These can be used effectively by unions as institutions know that such information is highly regarded nationally and poor results can affect retention and recruitment. However be wary of using this information as it is based on
the interpretation of the press and often the conclusions made do not accurately reflect the opinions of the majority of students in the institutions. Positions can depend greatly on the criteria on which they are evaluated. www.Unistats.com Times University League Table http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ tol/life_and_style/education/ sunday_times_university_guide/ The Complete University Guide http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide. co.uk/single.htm?ipg=7281 People and Planet Green League Table – provides information on institutions environmental policies and practices http://peopleandplanet.org/greenleague Looking at the data you already hold will help you to understand your research issue, as well as ensure that your research is focused and meaningful. It can: Give you a broad background to the issues and those related to your research. Sometimes factors interact or there may be numerous causes of a problem that you might not have considered. You will have to demonstrate how this does or does not affect your argument. Help you to target and understand students. It could help you find out where the students are that you wish to target and do it effectively, as well as what other issues might affect their behaviour.
Enable you to save time and resources by establishing what questions have already been asked. Why reinvent the wheel when you can use information that has already been collected to identify issues and narrow down causes? Allow you to place your situation in context. National and regional data can be used to benchmark or to draw comparisons, to help you place your situation in context, and to work out if students in your institution are worse off in a particular area.
Provide added value and credibility for any conclusions you make based on the results of your research.
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Conducting Research Once you have narrowed down what you would like to find out and investigated the background to your issue you will need to decide on your methodology - an appropriate means to collect information on your topic(s) of choice.
The size, scale and shape of your research will be determined by your question. The method that you decide to use will need to take into account the following factors: Accessibility –
will all students that want to get involved be able to? How will the research be administered? Credibility –
will your results be taken seriously and will they be sufficient to prove your point? How many student perspectives will you need to include to ensure that your research is valued? Resources –
do you have the time or sufficient support to undertake the kind of research that will meet your needs? The method that you choose should be practical. Timing –
have other surveys been recently carried out among these students? Will they be likely to respond to a survey at this time of year (eg exam period)? How much time do you have in order to conduct the research and when will you need the results?
What research method is right for me? There are two main types of research methodology– these can be broadly called quantitative research and qualitative research.
Quantitative research aims to measure and quantify information or data, and usually uses mathematical models or statistics to explain occurrences and relationships. It is usually characterised by the collection of information, and reduced to numbers and the use of statistical methods to explain patterns in it. It tends to investigate established principles that can be reduced to numbers for their explanation. Surveys are a typical example of quantitative research.
In contrast, qualitative research tends to look for the reasoning behind why things happen, and tends to use a smaller amount of data in a more focused way. It usually takes a longer period of time to reach a conclusion and analyse the data because of the scale and nature of the information collected. Examples of this are case studies, open text surveys, direct observation, case studies, structured and unstructured interviews and analysis of materials or documents. Both qualitative and quantitative research can be used together or separately. Often most powerfully, both are used together to substantiate a conclusion, make inferences or explain findings in more detail.
Types of Qualitative Research Focus groups can support existing statistical data, and student comments can add emotional depth to survey results. They can help you elicit an overview of the issues involved, and allow students to offer suggestions for improvement. In addition, they can also help you to refine your research aims. In-depth surveys, petitions, online polls – online, paper-based and telephone surveys are useful to gain information on a large scale, and quickly but are often costly to administer. They can consist of open questions and are useful in providing hard-hitting statistics.
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Interviews and case studies – like focus groups, they can help you get to grips with sensitive issues and provide information on less widespread issues, and are ideal to get in-depth information or to gain information on issues that affect a small minority. Participant observation – Why not visit an actual lecture to find out how it takes place or the area of focus to do an audit of the service, and document your own findings. “Mystery shopping” would fall under this category.
Desk-based research should ideally help you to define your research area, help provide the substance and background for your research, as well as ground your conclusions. Often, it is enough to establish support for change by comparing other practices/ policies in other institutions or national/local information and combine this with already existing research or other types of small scale research.
Types of Quantitative Research Surveys are the main means of conducting quantitative research and are ideal for gaining the opinions of a large number of individuals or identifying how many students an issue or problem may affect. Traditional quantitative surveys will consist of predominantly closed questions that can later be aggregated into codes and analysed using statistical software or mathematical equations - which can be a time-consuming process if there are a large number of respondents. In addition, consideration must be paid to whether conclusions made on the basis of statistics produced are reliable enough to make inferences about a greater population if they are used in this way. Closed questions will not provide you with clues as to “why” there are patterns in the data or responses, but can tell you the “who, what, where and when” quickly and easily. Because of this they are able to produce a
great amount of data that can be powerful and simple to interpret. You need not be limited to using only one method of research. A combination of more than one method, for example, a qualitative method like a focus group and a quantitative survey may be used to give your research added effect, or a survey can consist of both open and closed questions to ensure that statistics are justified. For example, sometimes quantitative data like a survey may be developed or enhanced by conducting qualitative research to look at the data in detail, such as a focus group, or adding real student comments to supplement statistical evidence.
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Surveys
Online Surveys
The following tips may help you to ensure that your survey results are considered valid and credible:
Often, online surveys tend to have higher response rates than hard-copy variants and can save time and money on data entry, fieldwork and even analysis.
Consider the different options for conducting your survey and reaching students. Will a paper based, online or telephone survey be most likely to yield more responses and reach the students you are interested in, or be the most appropriate for the type of questions you need to ask? Ensure that your survey is well timed. It will be more difficult to get students to take part in your survey if it coincides with an institutional survey or examination period.
Look at your resources. For surveys on a large scale (eg more than 50 students), ensure you have enough help to get students to complete the survey and to enter the data. If not, consider asking for help from your institution. Think about what the responses to your survey will look like. If you are conducting a large-scale survey you will almost certainly need to enter the data into computer programme like Excel or SPSS to be able to analyse and interpret it. If so, design and test your database in advance before releasing your survey. Consider how long it will take to get to a stage where it will be analysed. This is important for paper-based, large-scale surveys as it will take time to enter each survey into the database. If necessary, time how long it will take to enter the data from a single survey and multiply this by the number of responses you aim to have so that you can give an actual prediction of how long it will take for your results to be ready for analysis and how much help you will need. If resources and time are low you may want to consider an online survey. Consider an anonymous survey. Students may feel less likely to give their true responses if they feel that information can be linked back to them. It may be the case that your survey should be anonymous.
You can subscribe to a survey hosting package so that results are instantly available to you to save on data entry, for example www.surveymonkey.com where the data is broken down for you to interpret.
Interviews and Focus Groups Focus groups are ideally made up of approximately 8 people, whereas interviews tend to be one-on-one interaction.
Interviews and small focus groups tend to be preferable for sensitive subjects. Both are an ideal supplement to surveys as they can elicit more in-depth information about the subject area and give participants a chance to explain why certain statistical results have occurred. They also allow for emotionally powerful responses that may be useful to include in your presentation of results. Remember, you will need to record or transcribe your interview or group. This should be done by someone else, not participating in the interview or asking questions as it may be difficult to conduct the group and take accurate and comprehensive notes.
Tips for interviews and focus groups Advertise your focus group by giving potential participants a clear idea of what you hope to discuss and get out of it. Have reserve participants for your group in case numbers fall at the last minute. Test your equipment. Make sure that your recording devices are working and can do so for the duration necessary in case your group overruns on time. Also have a
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clock nearby to keep an eye on the time to ensure all of the areas that you wish to cover are discussed. Plan your questions and be sure to have extra questions in case conversation does not flow easily. Visit where you are going to undertake interviewing to see practicalities (noise, space etc). Ensure your group is appropriately timed and accessible. Ensure maximum participation by offering snacks or incentives. Remind participants that their anonymity will be protected and that the rules of the forum are clear. Ensure you have copies of your equal opportunities policy to hand and that participants are aware of how their feedback will be used and the rules of the forum and ensure that you minimise the possibility of recriminations. Transcribe or note down your analysis as soon as possible, so that you remember all of the details of the interaction.
Deciding what to ask Before planning your questions for a survey or focus group, think about what information you would like to elicit, and tailor your questions to suit. Design and test your questions so that they are not ambiguous, and easy to read and understand.
KEEP TO THE KISS PRINCIPLE: Keep it simple. Always check the survey (especially spelling and grammar) before sending it out for general use, for example, test on some volunteers to see if the questions make sense. Ensure you can separate your answers by the following if need be: age, ethnicity, religious background, area of study etc, and be careful to use appropriate terminology to describe categories or groups. If in doubt, visit the Equality and Human Rights Commission Website http:// www.equalityhumanrights.com/ or Surrey
University Survey Question bank at http:// qb.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ Ensure that you do not ask questions that you already know the answers to, or can be found out easily through desk-based research. Design your survey so that it is quick and easy to complete to ensure a maximum level of responses – it’s a good idea to time yourself and then calculate how long it will take for students to complete the number of surveys you would like. Ensure that you have enough help and resources for this to take place. Avoid usage of double concepts, for example: have you used the library or computer centre within the last week? (eg an answer to yes would not differentiate between which service was used and excludes respondents that have used just one service). Similarly, avoid the use of double negatives in a question, for example: “Do you know if you can vote in the union elections?”, as a “yes” to this question may mean that they do know, or they don’t know. Avoid leading or loaded questions, or those with built-in assumptions as this may lead to your results being dismissed as biased. Remember that terminology or acronyms such as NSS or UG OR SU may be obvious to you, but may not be to others, so avoid them where possible. If you plan to have a large number of respondents, consider numbering your surveys or participants’ responses so that responses can be matched back to particular surveys or individuals. Ensure your survey is accessible and can be made available in different formats. In addition, make sure you use a legible font, colour and size. For guidelines on these, visit the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) for a checklist of guidelines for accessibility: http://www.rnib.org. uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/ PublicWebsite/public_printchecklist1.pdf
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Getting students involved: Promotion Promoting participation: Consider inexpensive incentives for getting involved eg sweets, hot drinks, pens, entry to a prize draw if you have the details of those taking part in your survey. Alternatively, you could give a small donation to charity on behalf of every student that takes part.
“After 6 weeks we introduced an incentive based around graduation for students to complete the National Student Survey, aimed at final year undergraduates, - this way the incentive will appeal to all students in the final year.” Surrey Students’ Union
Give your survey a theme or branding with a publicity campaign to attract students’ attention, or tie it to an existing theme or campaign to heighten interest. If the feedback or information you receive will benefit both the union and the institution, why not work with your institution – they may be able to help with the analysis of the research or support important costs such data entry, interviewing, printing, distribution or publicity. Contact your clubs, societies and student reps that are already engaged in the union and ask them to get involved in your research or promote it. Try to make your research accessible by giving students a variety of ways to take part. For example conducting your survey in different areas of the campus and providing online alternatives for responding; if possible use multiple response methods for surveys. Look at where, when and the methods you are using to conduct your research to ensure that they allow the kind of
students you need information from to participate easily. This is especially important if your research is aimed at a particular demographic or social group. Where are the students you want to reach usually located? In the bar? In the advice service?
Tips on online surveys If you do use online surveys disseminated through emails try to use all email lists available. Your institution should have various specialist lists as well as a facility to email all students. If you can, repeat invitations to undertake the survey. If you merely send one email out and then think that you will get the requisite number of responses from that one email then you are destined to fail. Talk with your institution about sending an email out fortnightly, and to use specialist email lists as well as the general all-student email list. However try to ensure that your survey does not coincide with other surveys taking place, that you do not send too many reminders and that all parties sending out reminders are aware of when reminders have been sent so as not to harass students. Consider the wording of your invitation to online surveys - it is important that students quickly realise from the title and the email content the vital nature of the survey, its importance to them and their student experience. The more relevant a survey’s issue is to the people it is directed at the higher response rate you will receive.
Analysing results Once you have conducted your research, and collected the data, you will need to combine all of the participants’ responses to be able to come to conclusions.
Statistical packages If you have chosen to enter the data yourself for a survey, there are a number
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of statistical packages that make survey data easier to interpret and analyse, such as SPSS and Excel. However, you must pay careful attention to your survey design if you wish to use a package and look at the way that you design your questions and enter your responses.
Coding your data Often, data (with the exception of open questions) may only be entered into a package in numeric form or will need to be coded first. For example, all of those people that answer “yes” to a specific question are coded with a “1” and those that answer “No” are coded with a “3”. In addition, each respondent’s entry may also be given a unique code or number, so it can be matched with the data at a later stage. You may find it useful to number all of the responses on your questionnaire before distribution, and draw up a coding schedule (a key to the codes for each question) to enable data to be entered more swiftly.
Delivering the results: Closing the feedback loop This is the most crucial stage in your research project. It is vital that you let those involved know what the results have been, and highlight what you plan to do with the information that you have received so that they continue to feed back in future. Remember to make your summary of results quick, easy and clear and use pictures and clear statistics so that students understand the results.
Communicating your results to students Innovative ways to showcase your results: Banners, posters and flyers with headline statistics or comments to capture students’ attention. Student representatives. Mandates for change. Make a video or display of your results.
4. How many times have you contacted your course rep this year?
Once
Publish the results on your website. Get an article in your student media, or discussion on your radio or TV station. Hold a public meeting or showcase the results in a public area or meeting/forum.
Never On a few occasions On several occasions
Send an email to all students summarising the key results.
The coding schedule would be as follows:
Design an online quiz eg “what do you think students think?” and surprise them with the real facts and some of the more surprising statistics from your study.
Question no. 4 Variable
Choice Code
Once
1
Never
2
On a few occasions
3
On several occasions
4
Design posters or flyers with the key comments, statistics or findings – you might want to include students’ actual comments or the most important results/ statistics as headlines to attract attention. For the NSS, you can go straight to the NSS dissemination site to access real quotes from students about their experience, and search for common themes/words.
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Reading University Students’ Union As part of their preparation for their university’s institutional audit, Reading University Students’ Union conducted a huge feedback survey of more than 1,500 students. The union combined this with student focus groups, campaigns research, the international students’ barometer national survey and the National Student Survey. As part of their submission to the audit, the union also produced a studentfocused video to supplement their written content, allowing auditors the chance to see Reading students’ views clearly and highlighting the student perspective in an interesting and innovative way. The video, made by students, is available to view on Facebook and the union’s own website.
Communicating your results to the institution
Writing a Report Title & Introduction -
It is important to ensure that you present your results effectively to your institution in order to do justice to your research. Typically, you may find it useful to present your ideas in a written format: sending out a report to key institutional staff and inviting them to respond to it or presenting the relevant results at a meeting.
Remember to Make the data as relevant as possible to your audience. This may require different briefings or presentations for different staff members or groups. Speak their language; keep in mind your institution’s priorities such as student recruitment and retention and try to align your approach, recommendations and tone with these. Be brief and concise and aim to make an impact in a short document or presentation.
Use the title to sum up what the whole report is about. What is the purpose of the report? Use the introductory paragraph to say who the report is for, what it contains, and what the report’s aim is. It is a good idea to include your research methodology within your report so that it is clear that your results are credible and can be supported, so list the number of students that participated. Report structure -
Make a plan (for yourself) of how you will organise the contents. What topics & ideas will it contain? What headings? Main text –
This is where your report will stand or fall; it should contain all your ideas, news, achievements, etc. The topics should flow logically – nothing should
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look out of place, if it does move it to a more appropriate section. Always back up your statements with factual evidence in the form of statistics, figures, charts or comments.
incorrectly. Stick to short sentences and plain English. Make it look organised
Fonts, graphics and graphs
Do not use pretty graphics or fonts in a report. While they may look cute they do not look professional. Also using graphs too much devalues them and moves attention away from the text or figures. Conclusion -
Finish your report with a conclusion (a summary of the whole report’s main thrust and ideas for the future) rounding up your overall views. If appropriate add a ‘Recommendations’ section, and try to include an ‘Action Plan’ to ensure that your reader knows what action they can take based on your findings.
Other things you may wish to include: Executive Summary
Audience
Always know who your audience is and tailor your writing style appropriately. Keep it simple and as brief as possible. As length is the enemy of all reports, watch out for the use of long words and complex sentences as these are more difficult to digest and may be used
Make sure you have everything in the report that you require and in the right order (title, executive summary [see below], introduction, main text, conclusion, recommendations, action plan). Also check spelling and grammar before presenting it. If possible get a fresh pair of eyes to proofread the report.
This is a summary of the whole report in a brief form. It should include only your core ideas, key findings (‘news’), conclusion and recommendations. It should be no more than one page long and be positioned at the beginning of your report. Appendices –
It is important to keep your report brief, accurate and focused so that it can quickly be understood. Appendices give you an opportunity to add additional data, graphs or explanations that you refer to in your report without taking up space within the main report.
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Case study from Manchester Metropolitan SU: Researching our Student Written Submission Gary Hughes; Student Engagement Co‑ordinator Manchester Met Union needed help to conduct research for the SWS, and embarked on 8 separate research projects undertaken for free by their own institution…
Defining the focus When we were considering what we wanted to include in our Student Written Submission (SWS), we looked at the four suggested areas of focus that the QAA put on their website to guide our research: the accuracy of published information, the student experience as a learner, preparing students to do well, and the student representation system. We realised that this would require a number of separate pieces of research of different types, so we tried to create a series of different comprehensive but rational research projects on different areas of the student experience to gather and analyse the information that we needed to be able to draw our conclusions and recommendations for our SWS.
Choosing the right research methodology; asking the right questions We discovered, as most students’ unions have, that a lot of information already existed but we were disappointed because the very separate nature of each Faculty meant that lots of information existed in far-away places and no-one knew exactly what was available or how to access it – the only thing we were sure of was that it existed! We used easily available information like the National Student Survey and the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey to shape our early assumptions
but we decided that we were really more interested in knowing how MMU responded to the information that they collected in all of the disparate parts of the university. Some analysis was easy to do; we used our course reps to give us their opinions. Many told us that the external project opportunities that attracted them to their MSc didn’t actually materialise and the Faculty had no intention to work to make them happen, so we could immediately point at inaccuracies in the prospectus. Some advice centre clients told us that they wanted to appeal their disciplinary cases because there procedural inaccuracies with their original hearing because the panel had no student on it, so we could point towards inaccuracies in the application of published academic regulations. Project A was quite easy to do. We sent some quite critical and searching questions to each Dean of Faculty and Head of Division and asked them to provide us with their thoughts and evidence of reaction to the needs of students in the delivery of their service, whether it was an academic or support service. One of our research projects focused on induction – the union believes that a lot of poor performance happens because students receive a poor induction experience and don’t know how to achieve good results. We designed a market research model that got qualitative and quantitative data from our new first year students. This included asking people to blog every day of their month at MMU, complete an online survey and respond to our first Course Rep campaign. We reached about 1070, which is 14% of all of our Freshers. This was new research but we knew that the information we wanted didn’t exist elsewhere and we wanted to include evidence from the induction process to inform our conclusions and recommendations about how students are prepared to do well.
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Getting the Research Done The union didn’t have the resources or capacity to conduct this research alone, so we sought outside help and contacted the institution. MMU Business School offers Business and Research Consultancy Projects to customers where six final year BA Business students will undertake a specific piece of work and report their findings. MMUnion submitted successful bids to the Business School and asked the students to present to our SWS Working Group chaired by MMUnion’s President and advised by MMU’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Standards and Quality and the Head of the Centre for Academic Standards and Quality Enhancement. We thought that a group with this level of expertise could help the students in their learning as well as help us to understand the results.
We also had to consider cost. This level of research would obviously take a lot of time and resources which we weren’t sure we could guarantee. Although the university very kindly gave us a £5000 grant to support our SWS work, we had plans for that already! Our money had to stretch.
Case study: University of Central Lancashire SU Investigating feedback on assessment at UCLAN SU UCLAN Students’ Union undertook an online survey of over 250 students as part of a campaign on feedback to demand better assignment feedback from the University. The campaign was started after the Union discovered in the 2008 National Student Survey that 43 per cent of UCLan students were dissatisfied with the promptness of assignment feedback and further research for the Student Written Submission 2008 confirmed this feeling amongst students. To distribute the survey widely, the link was circulated to all Course Reps and
Gary’s top tips: Don’t be afraid to ask for help to conduct your research if your budget or staff capacity won’t allow it. We looked at other institutions as well as our own institution to conduct the research. We wanted people who shared some experience of being a student and we received fast, cheap and insightful responses. Remember to say thank you all the time. You should say thank you to the students that take part, so try to budget in a snack and a drink where you can, as well as ensuring that those external parties that help realise that you really value their contribution.
Don’t just find out what students think, look at what action was taken by the institution to resolve it. Learn from the project and do it again. Completing the SWS doesn’t mean the end of research into the learning experience. Think about what you can commission to find out about your students next year.
all students at UCLAN who had signed up for the NUS extra card and had said they had wanted to receive updates from the union throughout the year. In addition, the officers also went out around campus and did a big feedback day of action where students had the chance to complete the survey and give their view on what feedback is expected in the 15 day turnaround stated on ‘The Card’ given out by the University. As well as running an online campaign, with information about feedback and examples of poor and good feedback the union also hosted a mock referendum about whether they felt overall feedback was good or bad from the university. To supplement the survey findings, Education Officer, Sarah has also had copies of actual feedback handed in by students which strengthened the campaign.
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To find out more about UCLAN’s Feedback campaign, visit: http://www.uclansu.co.uk/campaigns/ good_bad_feedback.php http://www.uclansu.co.uk/news/ feedback-campaign-week-of-action -grows-support230109.php
The full version of this research guide can be viewed on the HE Policy Corner of NUS Connect.
www.nus.org.uk