Jeff is of course quite right – it’s certainly not as simple an issue as ‘low grade = low satisfaction’.  But Howard Williamson’s point about good teaching and learning not necessarily being what students like is an important one to ponder.  For instance, in my old job (careers adviser) I found that role playing was an excellent way to help students get their heads around interviews.  It’s much more effective than providing even the best kind of lecture or reading material, but they didn’t always like it because it’s difficult.  That being said, over time I developed ways to sell the idea, demonstrating its utility and making it seem more achievable by setting it up carefully and giving plenty of prompts and support, but this was indeed a challenge.  Typically, in spite of moans and groans at the mention of the task, evaluations suggested they had ultimately found it worthwhile.   I was then in the relatively luxurious situation of generally having well-motivated, self-selecting groups to work with.  Now, facing a cohort of 400+ second years all together, it’s rather trickier to devise engaging, meaningful and manageable methods that have any chance of keeping everyone happy or – more to the point – “satisfied” in the way that will enable the students to give high scores in the NSS when their turn comes.  My colleagues have worked wonders with personalising feedback as much as possible, but the numbers are tough to juggle.

It’s also completely true that we are responsible for providing a high quality experience, but I absolutely don’t think that responsibility changes at all as a result of the costs to students.  It should have always been a high priority and this should simply continue, whoever’s pockets the money comes from.  After all and in spite of what students may think, all of our taxpaying pockets are being emptied in part so that the system can continue. Even if I weren’t employed in this sector I’d still be concerned about its progress.

Still, there are undoubtedly problems with the NSS.  One area of particular concern to me is how results are interpreted by the public. Similarly, I worry about how people will use the data about the so-called employability indicator (and I’ll argue about that terminology until the cows come home).  Given where I work, you might think I’d be laughing, but I feel people are being encouraged to make their decisions on the basis of rather superficial information.  I fear this is a common complaint against any points scoring system that results in a league table, so maybe I’m flogging a dead horse.  Is there any non-sports ‘league table’ that enjoys universal admiration and agreement?  Then there’s the discrepancies commonly seen between disciplines in the NSS results.  Art-based institutions in particular seem to take a bit of a beating.  I’ve never worked in one, but I’m confident they can’t all be bad and that leads me to wonder if perhaps there’s a better way to assess the work we’re all doing?

Enough of this musing.  I must get back to the grindstone so I can figure out the next episode in the ongoing saga of my particular bit of the students’ high quality experience.

Best wishes

Alexandra Hemingway

Professional Development and Employability Tutor

Faculty of Business, Economics and Law

University of Surrey, GU2 7XH

Tel: 01483 683080

Email: [log in to unmask]

Twitter: @AJHemingway

Blog: www.thecareerslady.wordpress.com

Can’t resist a response to this!

I would strongly dispute the statement that students performing less well ‘inevitably’ give a more negative evaluation.  Students are generally pretty good at recognising reasons for a good or poor performance on their part and I think it does them a great disservice to assume they will be critical of their university experience if they do not get high marks.  It also misses one of the points – that we as a sector have a great responsibility to be offering a high quality experience to our students many of whom, from next year, will be paying a high price for it.  Speaking as a mathematician, I don’t think you need a ‘top brain’ to recognise this!

Jeff Waldock

Good Morning All,

Here’s an extract from an interesting interview article on Guardian Higher, which I think sums up some of our challenges well:

“I think one of the most dreadful things introduced in recent times is the National Student Survey. It's a consumer satisfaction survey and inevitably, students who have perhaps performed less well will give more negative evaluations to courses they've undertaken. And as I'm constantly saying, learning is not necessarily liking, and sometimes effective approaches to teaching and learning can be unpopular with students.” (my bold)

The whole thing is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2011/oct/11/howard-williamson-interview?CMP=

Not perhaps the most cheerful message to share BUT on the other hand, we can view it as a) reassurance that many of us face similar difficulties b) a reminder that some people at least are recognising and more importantly publicising the flaws in the NSS and c) a complex and worthwhile intellectual, pedagogical challenge.  Maths is famous as a discipline for top brains setting and (often some time later) solving complex problems.  So if we were all Maths people, we’d probably love this kind of challenge! Let’s hope someone comes up with a supremely elegant solution in less time than it took to solve Fermat’s last theorem.

Best wishes

Alexandra Hemingway

Professional Development and Employability Tutor

Faculty of Business, Economics and Law

University of Surrey, GU2 7XH

Tel: 01483 683080

Email: [log in to unmask]

Twitter: @AJHemingway

Blog: www.thecareerslady.wordpress.com