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Action over NSS Survey results

22nd October 2007

The responses from last year's NSS survey, completed by final year undergraduate students about their courses and time at University, have been gathered and Swansea University and its teaching staff and departments are tackling the problems and concerns raised, as well as letting any praise be known.

Some students from the School of Arts commented that they felt disorientated at the beginning of their first year and that they needed to be given a more wide-ranging introduction to their area of study. As a result of this feedback, the School of Arts has embarked on a review of Level 1 teaching, and has subsequently found a need for a cross-department introductory module. The first of these was a study skills module, introduced in time for this current academic semester.

There were also some comments in the survey about modules being unable to be delivered because of staff changes. It was found that these problems were limited to an area of considerable growth within a department. The issue was addressed through new permanent staff appointments.

The most significant complaint was a lack of feedback and information on assessment criteria and marking. Students were keen to receive a better indication of when they can expect results of their assessment and to have a clearer understanding of how their marks relate to what is expected of them within modules.

The School of Arts has been working closely with members of the School Learning and Teaching Committee to address these issues, creating much - expanded School Assessment Criteria, to be made available to students at all levels of study. The School Learning and Teaching Committee continues to work on ensuring that feedback is normally provided within three weeks of assessment submission, as set out in the University's policy, introduced in 2005.

Negative comments from History Department students tended to concentrate on library resources and class sizes. It was noted that the problem was largely inevitable, due to growing student numbers in comparison to the number of staff members. The department is endeavouring to ease the situation by increasing the use of Blackboard and by advising the greater use of electronic journals.

It was noted within the Politics Department that during the academic year 2005-2006 there were some variations between colleagues about the volume and nature of feedback on assessed coursework offered to students. The matter was discussed in more than one departmental meeting, and was addressed by introducing more detailed feedback-cum-mark sheets, which markers have been required to fill in and attach to every piece of assessed coursework since May 2006.

Research and Representation Advisor John Follett commented that, "The university has listened quite attentively to what the students have been saying in the NSS. They realize that the NSS is an instrument of improvement of the overall student experience with the emphasis on correcting problematic areas and disseminating good practice.

In addition the use of the NSS results nationally to create a web page to help future students choose their University is important as the information comes from present students and illustrates their views of the experiences they are having in higher education.

It is unfortunate that the majority of the good work that originates from the NSS results occurs behind the scenes, as there has been a lot of developments coming from this survey and hopefully students will begin to realize through this article that their views are taken into account.

It is not only in their interests to fill it in but also for future students too."

Caroline Sutch