Are postgraduates happy? Postgraduates have their say

Much is made every year of the National Student Survey which asks the questions are students happy, and if not, why not? However, this survey is carried out amongst undergraduates. Up until now postgraduates haven’t really had a say despite the fact that they make up almost a quarter of the student population.

This situation is changing with the introduction of the first ever national survey in the UK to find out what postgraduate research students think about their experiences. The Postgraduate Research Experience Survey was published in December by the Higher Education Academy and contains the responses of over 10,000 postgraduates.

On the whole research postgraduates reported that they were happy with their experience, with 81% of respondents indicating that their programme had met or exceeded their expectations.

Postgraduates reported that they considered supervision to be the most important aspect in successfully completing their degree on time. Intellectual climate was also an important factor in overall satisfaction. Despite the importance of these factors, a fifth of students thought supervision didn’t meet their expectations and a quarter of students were disappointed with the intellectual climate.

The aim of the annual survey is that praise, comments and criticisms such as these will be taken on board and used to improve the postgraduate experience. The results of the survey will be used by universities to benchmark their students’ views against a larger, national sample and identify strengths and possible improvements in provision for postgraduate students. Professor Lee Harvey, Director of Research and Evaluation at the Higher Education Academy, commented:

“This survey marks an important first in finding out on a national basis what postgraduate students at UK universities think of their experiences. Students know better than anyone else how different factors affect their studies. By repeating the survey annually the Higher Education Academy will build up a comprehensive picture of how postgraduate programmes are meeting student expectations.”

Time for a change

The first postgraduate research survey comes at a time when student voices are high on the student and government agenda. Alongside the established National Student Survey, the National Student Listening Programme was introduced at the end of last year.This incorporates student juries and the Independent National Student Forum. Postgraduates will have their own distinct student jury which will have the purpose of getting student issues onto the government’s agenda.

Changes in the postgraduate education system have also helped to bring about the survey. Authorities such as the QAA and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator are now helping to ensure that postgraduate quality standards are upheld.

The survey will centralise postgraduate feedback; up until now there has been no systematic way of collecting information about research students and what they think; many HEIs have developed their own internal surveys, but these are obviously very localised and they are often not run annually.

Additionally postgrads themselves are increasingly grouping together and becoming more vocal about their opinions. Duncan Connors, president of the National Postgraduate Committee told the Independent: “In recent years postgrads have become much more politicised. Postgraduate politics is thriving at grassroots level, with new postgraduate associations springing up around the country.”

The future

Although the PRES survey will provide a broader picture of research postgraduates’ opinions, the results are unlikely to be as far-reaching as those of the National Student Survey. Chris Parks, chair of the PRES steering group, explained: “Results of the NSS survey are published, and HEIs are encouraged to address enhancement of the undergraduate student experience by virtue of their league table positions based on NSS scores. PRES results are confidential to the HEI and there are no PRES league tables (deliberately so), so HEIs do not yet have the urgency or the imperative to visibly enhance the research student experience. As a consequence, I’m fairly sure that most HEIs will continue to focus their efforts more on the undergraduate student experience and less on research students.”

However, despite this Parks is still confident that in the long run we will see a difference: “I hope the effects of PRES include raising the profile of the research student experience within HEIs and across the sector, and helping HEIs and the sector to identify where students would want to see improvements.

“Such improvements will not happen overnight, but informed by PRES results HEIs should now be able to identify priorities and agree action plans. That should also be true of the sector; for example within the Higher Education Academy we are discussing how best to respond to the aggregate PRES results in ways that will help the sector. My guess is that it will take at least 2 years for us to start picking up positive changes that will show in PRES results.”