University Experience Survey (UES)
In 2011, the Australian Government commissioned a consortium led by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) to develop and conduct a new survey that would assess the experiences of university students across the nation. The data gathered by the survey was intended to provide cross institutional benchmarking to aid in the quality assurance and improvement of higher education in Australia. The first UES was conducted in 2012, with questions targeting aspects of the student experience which could reasonably be assumed to be under the direct control of the institution. These aspects were grouped into 5 focus areas in which each institution would be scored:
- Learner Engagement
- Teaching Quality
- Learning Resources
- Student Support
- Skills Development
CSU has chosen to use items from the UES as measures in the Our Students section of its University Strategy 2013-2015. These are:
- Quality of the Entire Educational Experience - an item in the Teaching Quality focus area;
- Skills Development - the focus area; and
- Sense of Belonging – an item in the Learner Engagement focus area.
- Developed Work Related Knowledge – the Skills Development focus area.
The measures are limited to later year students and the objective is to be above national average.
The 2012 University Experience Survey
The first University Experience Survey (UES) drew responses from 110,135 students across 40 universities. The Charles Sturt University population consisted of 9,968 students - 5806 “first year” students and 4162 “later year” students. Responses were received from 1704 first years and 1076 later year students – making up 2,780 students in total and giving CSU an overall response rate of 28%.
ACER provided each institution with a report detailing their performance and comparing it (to a limited extent) to the nation outcomes as a whole. This institution report allows comparisons with national averages - separating the results based on the students’ Field of Education and Progression through their study (ie whether they are a first year or later year student).
ACER also made a national report publicly available. The national report discusses the UES process and methods as a whole while providing some high level results across all universities.
The Office of Planning and Audit has represented CSU’s data in a Tableau report – allowing the results to be viewed online via the UES Dashboard. Questions on the representation can be directed to pa@csu.edu.au
Points of interest from the 2012 survey and outcomes:
- The feedback gathered resulted in CSU scoring on or below average across all five focus areas.
- The student response profile differs significantly between on-campus and distance education students for two scales, (particularly so for Learner Engagement and to a lesser extent for Skills Development) and also for particular items across most scales. As such the following points should be made:
- Analysis of CSU’s results for individual survey items should explicitly consider mode of study.
- The survey reports do not allow breakup of national results by mode of study, making it difficult to benchmark CSU’s outcomes.
- While the differing responses between CSU’s on-campus and distance cohorts may be seen as a shortcoming in survey methodology they may also highlight opportunities to improve services or to consider changed approaches to the distance education cohort.
* we are clarifying with the vendor how each students ‘score’ for each focus area was calculated based on their responses.
-
-
- Focus area results