How course reps can use the NSS
Course Reps, students’ unions and universities/colleges can use the results of the NSS to quickly highlight issues and take action to improve the student experience.
What’s great about the NSS is that the results are available online on at unistats now for your university or college, so you can see what past students have thought, and use these comments as evidence for any issues that arise. You can also see a snapshot of what students thought about their courses across the UK.
Is the NSS useful to me?
But the NSS only asks about the opinion of final year undergraduates – can I still use the NSS results? Yes, you can. The NSS results are the views of final-year undergraduates, but it is likely that, unless action is taken, problems that were highlighted by final year students will end up being very similar to those that you will face unless resolved.
Final-year students took the time to complete this survey so that after their departure, problem areas could be highlighted to your institution, and so that you could have an even better student experience.
Course Reps are vital in making sure that universities and colleges make a commitment to making improvements to areas that have been rated poorly in the NSS and ensure that students like you don’t experience the same problems in the future.
Ways Course Reps can use the NSS
As a Rep, you can view how aspects of your course of study have been rated and use this to support your case when discussing academic issues in departmental and course meetings. Your institution will be aware of their own NSS results, and will be happy to hear about suggestions you or other students have to improve things.
In addition, many students’ unions have used the results to support successful campaigns for change in their institution. Here are some examples:
• The University of East Anglia Students’ Union used their results to establish a firm case for anonymous marking, which is now being adopted stage by stage across the university;
• Courtauld Students’ Union used NSS data to support a campaign that led to the revision of their personal tutoring system;
• University of Reading used the NSS to feed into their student written submission during their most recent QAA audit. Watch their video online now;
• Read more examples of how the NSS has helped change courses for the better.
What can I do now?
• Get hold of your results: Ask your students’ union for an in- depth version of your NSS results for your course or visit unistats to view a summary of your most recent results for your department;
• compare how different students are experiencing different courses across your institution, where are there problems and where are the pockets of good practice – what can be learnt and shared to improve things for students on your course?
• talk to your fellow students about these results and refer to the results in your committee meetings – can they help you argue for improvements? Why not send them round a quick summary of these results?
• take your results to your next meeting, or table them as an agenda item – don’t forget to mention both the positive and negative results;
• speak to other course reps in your university or college – are they experiencing similar problems as students on your course? Can you work collectively to campaign for change?
• If students on your course of study are due to be surveyed this year, why not encourage students on your course to get involved?
More information on the NSS
Download a briefing for Course Reps on the National Student Survey or a Guide to Using the NSS.
Find out what students thought from the 2008 NSS results