The latest study into students’ perceptions of university life has found that the majority of those surveyed continue to have a favourable experience on campus – particularly when it comes to the learning resources they access.
The Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching’s Student Experience Survey (SES) for higher education covers the student life cycle from commencement to employment.
The 2019 survey revealed that 78% of undergraduate students gave a positive rating on their overall educational experience – slightly lower from the 2017-2018 SES national report results of 79%.
Of all the focus areas, learning resources had the highest positive rating at 84%, followed by teaching quality and skills development, which both scored 81%.
Student support and learner engagement had lower ratings at 74% and 60%, respectively.
The QILT survey also revealed that commencing students are more upbeat with their educational experience, rating the quality of their entire educational experience 81%. Later year, students rated theirs at just 75%.
While commencing students were more satisfied with the learning resources (87%) and later year students were more satisfied with skills development (83%), both gave their lowest satisfaction rating on their university’s learning engagement.
Postgraduate coursework students were not as positive as their undergraduate peers. Only 76% of these students rated their quality of educational experience as satisfactory, also expressing the least satisfaction on learner engagement (54%).
Like commencing undergraduate students, postgraduate students were most satisfied with learning resources (83%).
Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said the latest results serve as a reminder for universities to improve their student experience as the Federal Government shifts to performance-based funding, which seeks to incentivise institutions to improve student experience.
Student experience is one of the four criteria the Federal Government will use to assess a university’s performance. However, graduate employment outcomes, as well as student success, are given heavier weight out of all the key measures.
“I encourage all universities to look deeply at the results for their institution and continue to focus on how to improve the student experience,” Minister Tehan said.
"The Morrison Government is encouraging greater collaboration between universities and businesses on research innovation and workforce preparation to ensure our graduates have the job-ready skills to succeed in the modern economy."
An ongoing trend
Since 2012, undergraduate students have given the highest satisfaction ratings for learning resources, while learner engagement and student support also had the lowest marks.
In the 2019 report, all higher education institutions included in the survey received an overall educational experience satisfaction rating of 78.4%, with the highest satisfaction (84.8%) coming from learning resources and the lowest coming from learner engagement (63.2%).
Among the universities rated, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) posted the lowest satisfaction in student experience at 62.9%, more than a 10% drop from its ratings the previous year.
In an article published in the Sydney Morning Herald, UNSW deputy vice-chancellor Merlin Crossley credited the drop in satisfaction to the University’s shift to a trimester system. Students – as well as staff – had lower satisfactory experience due to the change.
Within the Group of 8 members, the University of Queensland had the highest SES rating of 80%, followed by the University of Western Australia (79.7%), Australian National University (79.6%), and the University of Adelaide (79%).
The University of Divinity, however, had the highest overall educational experience rating at 92.8%.