PTES 2014 Update

112 Expressions of interest to date (97 EoIs in 2013 of whom 89 took part) Earliest launch date: 3 February Latest launch date: 30 April Live benchmarking: mid May Last possible close date: 19 June Benchmarking stable: 20 June Benchmarking reports: mid July Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey 2014

Dweud eich Dweud Rydym ni eisiau sicrhau bod myfyrwyr uwchraddedig yn cael y profiad gorau posib.I wneud hyn mae angen i ni wybod eich barn, beth rydym yn gwneud yn dda, ac a oes unrhyw beth y gallwn wneud yn well. ADD YOUR WEB ADDRESS HERE

PTES has been significantly revised for 2014 after research and sector-wide consultation; Analysis of previous PTES results to explore how well scales were working; Consultation on topics to be included in new survey; Interviews with 77 taught postgraduates, representing a broad range of students, from across 11 Universities; Final recommendations discussed by the PTES advisory group. Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey Revised

What PTES 2014 covers In addition to 13 NSS questions, including overall satisfaction, PTES covers: dissertation / major project; higher level skills, including creativity and research skills; student engagement, including working with peers, workload, course challenge, and independent learning; support and guidance, including induction and careers.

What PTES 2014 covers My confidence to be innovative or creative has developed during my course This was not particularly problematic. Most students could relate to the two concepts in one way or another. Although many thought that being innovative related more to science subjects and being creative to the arts, all could find examples of how they had been innovative or creative even if they were not on these types of programmes, for example, by focusing on a new area of investigation for an essay or dissertation – ‘I came up with a research proposal, innovation is part of it.’ Extract from the report “Cognitive Review of Survey Items at Postgraduate Level” by CooperGibson Research, 2014

What PTES 2014 covers There are 18 attitudinal questions that can give fairly clear trend data… The change in direction of the scale, with agree options now to the left, makes a positive trend likely; Existing questions in teaching & learning (5), assessment & feedback (3), dissertation (3), organisation & management (3), and resources (3); Questions on support for learning and subject specific resources have changes to wording that may make a significant difference to response.

What PTES 2014 covers In addition to the 37 attitudinal questions, PTES gathers information on: student motivations to choose the course they did, and perceptions of information that helped them decide; key demographics e.g. age, mode, employment; support for understanding English; the amount of time they have been out of study and how they are now funding their studies.

What PTES 2014 covers In addition to 60 closed questions/items, PTES gathers student comments on: comments about each topic e.g. on assessment and feedback; the most interesting or exciting part of their course; the one thing they would like to improve; how institutions could better provide information to help course decisions.

Changes to PTES Discussion How do the changes impact on your communication to staff and students? Have you had any feedback from staff? Should we be doing anything now to support your analysis?

Raising Response Rates

1. Personalise s and make them informal; 2. Publicise what you have done in response to student feedback; 3. Use a hyperlink that passes the student to the survey directly from the . 3½. Send lots of s… Three rules for getting good response rates

Raising Response Rates the institutional view

Raising Response Rates Discussion: How could you, or do you plan to… 1.Monitor response rates and encourage inter-department competition; 2.Use hyperlink URLs and personalised s; 3.Publicise what you have done in response to feedback.

Getting PTES up and running

Why add bespoke questions? Get feedback on issues specific to your institution Drill-down into areas of concern identified in PTES 2013 Get feedback on recent enhancements and initiatives Continue monitoring trends for questions no longer in PTES Engage staff and students’ union in the design of the survey Institutional questions

However: Bespoke questions are not benchmarkable They will add to the survey completion time They will add to the work involved in analysis and reporting Ideally, questions should be tested prior to inclusion Institutional questions

Possible areas for consideration: Application process Teaching consistency and workload Specific learning resources provided at your institution Student support services Employer engagement Expectations Importance of aspects of provision Would you recommend this course/institution to a friend? Institutional questions

Discussion:: How many institutional questions do you use? What questions have you found useful? What are the main difficulties you have found?

The Support Tool

Benchmarked data available via BOS from mid-May; Comparison to pre-set benchmarking groups; Basic tables of results; Standard Benchmarking Reports via HEA from mid-July; Detailed by subject statistical analyses; Include custom benchmarking groups for additional cost. Benchmarking for 2014

Pre-loading data for PTES 2015

Why? Would make the survey much shorter; Institutional data more reliable; Course specific benchmarking How? Formatted data could be loaded via survey platform; Formatted data could be sent to HEA; When? Survey platform changing for 2015 could make this possible as part of survey process; Increasing demand for change. Pre-loading data into the survey

More information? Phone: (ask for the Surveys Team) Website: