1. The Students’ Union Insight Department
MedSoc information
The Students’ Union Insight Department

2. Information gathering
Your Students’ Union Insight Team work on gathering information from all students through conducting 3 all student surveys each academic year, other surveys to smaller groups of students, focus groups, workshops, ethnographies, and online thought forums. In the future, the Students’ Union want to invest specific effort into getting to know Undergraduate Medical students better. We have analysed these results by filtering for postgraduate medicine and nursing students. As there were not a lot of responses from PG Nursing students, the responses have been combined.

3. What students want help with
Finance (coping with personal budgets, experiencing financial pressure, accommodation costs).
Wellbeing (feeling depressed/ anxious, loneliness, stress, and physical illness, issues with University counselling service).
Academic pressure (leading to mental health problems, pressure to succeed (particularly at the start of the course), lots of deadlines, bit step up in difficulty between years).
Accommodation issues (with housemates and landlords).
Wanting subject-specific employability support.

4. Satisfaction and feelings towards the Students’ Union
Undergraduate Medical students:
Have an average of 6.84/10 in terms of satisfaction with the SU.
In terms of SU engagement, the majority of these students:
Physically visit SU space once or twice a term/ month, or never..
Browse the SU website/ social media once a term, or never.
Volunteer, fundraise, or work for the SU never, or once a year.
Attend club/ society meetings/ sessions once a week to once or twice a month.
Have an average understanding of the Students’ Union, however this could be improved upon (56% unaware that the SU isn’t a Uni department; 51% unaware that the SU is a charity; 8% unaware that income raised by the SU is reinvested into enhancing student experience; 8% are unaware that you don’t have to pay to register as part of the SU; 7% are unaware that the SU represents students on a local and national level).

5. The Students Union Undergraduate Medicine students have reported:
A shift in SU priorities (to involve less ‘red tape’, involving all students, a greater diversity of activities, more transparency).
To see more mental health support.
Wanting to see more financial support.
Wanting to find it easier to access accommodation support.
Helping students to get more involved in extra-curricular aspects of University.
Feeling ‘at home’ at UoN: 7.6/10
A ‘sense of belonging’ with the SU: 5.0/10

6. Societies and sports These students:
IMS: 12% take part, 69% do not, 22% would like to/ would like more information.
Sports clubs: 42% take part, 41% do not, 16% would like to.
Societies: 70% take part, 21% do not, 9% would like to.
Volunteering: 35% take part, 62% do not, 9% would like to.

7. Personality and preferences
Undergraduate Medical Students:
Ranked the following in order of importance to them:
High quality teaching
Feeling like you are succeeding on your course
Employability
Having fun at University
Standing up for what you believe in
Many of these students report liking getting some SU information through an up-to-date website, social media, face-to-face, or through a fortnightly e-newsletter (though they do not want to receive communications which will not be relevant to them).

8. Personality
The Students’ Union has done some research and identified 8 ‘key personality traits’. Though it is likely that each student displays each of these traits to an extent, it appears that almost everyone falls into one of these personality types at a certain point in time. Students can chance in their personality type very quickly, or over a long period of time.

9. Personality Pragmatic High Achievers (9.4%) Social Butterflies (30.3%)
Medical students:
Rate highly in personality types
Pragmatic High Achievers (9.4%)
These students are here because they are focussed on their future career. They are willing to put extra time in for activities that they see as being useful.
Social Butterflies (30.3%)
These students like to have fun, and they are willing to get involved in extra-curricular activities.
Dedicated Detailers (8.7%)
These students are very dedicated to their course work and often find it difficult to relax and take a break from work. They need encouraging here, with messages like “give yourself a break”.
Work Hard, Play Hard (18.8%)
These students balance their time well, and they are always willing to get involved in new activities (be it social or academic).

10. Personal difficulties
7.7% of Undergraduate Medical students report experiencing an mental disability, 2.6% report experiencing a physical disability, and a further 1.3% report experiencing both a physical and a mental disability.
Anxiety, depression, and specific learning disorders are amongst some of these issues.
In the past, it has been found that some students studying healthcare subjects are worried about reporting their welfare issues, as a result of fearing it would impact their ‘fitness to practice’.

11. Map of the Students’ Union
The following slide represents a draft ‘map’ of the Students’ Union. In the future, we aim to fill this out with key contacts for you, so that you can feel more connectedness with your Students’ Union as a key association.

12. The Students’ Union Commercial People and Finance
UNAD
‘Welcome’
Officers
Associations
Events
SRS’
The Guild
MedSoc
SUPRA
NMA
SU Print Shop
Sponsorship & Fundraising
SU Bar HR
Training
Events
SU Shop
Insight
People & Development
Marketing
Commercial
The Students’ Union
People and Finance
Insight and Marketing
Finance
Membership Services
Societies & Sport
Student Living
Employability
Volunteering
Representation Development
Health & Safety

13. Next Steps
If you are interested in finding out more about this information, or if you would like the Students’ Union Insight Team to research something else about NMA students, contact a member of the Insight Team:
Engagement Analyst:
Customer Insight Manager: