Reading Student Survey

The vision within the University's Learning and Teaching Strategy 2007-11 is to provide a stimulating and challenging educational experience to our students. In order to understand how our students view our provision we conducted the first ever Reading Student Survey.

The aims of the survey were:

to investigate the change in student engagement with their degrees as they pass through their studies, from Part 1, Part 2 and their final year at undergraduate level, to tuition in taught masters programmes; and
to investigate the comparative strengths and weaknesses of different academic disciplines. This will allow us to identify where effective practice is taking place within the University so that ideas and practices can be transferred more easily between departments.

The survey took place at the start of the summer term and was an on-line census survey of 9,831 undergraduates and taught postgraduates. There were 2,442 valid responses, equivalent to 25% of those invited to take part. The fieldwork was carried out by Ipsos MORI, an independent market research organisation, and all answers provided by the students were completely confidential.

The survey was divided in to seven benchmarks, for each of which a series of questions were grouped together to form an overall indicator. Each was analysed on a 100 point scale with 0 representing least engagement and 100 most engagment. The benchmarks are:

Level of Academic Challenge	Active and Collaborative Learning
Student Interaction with Academics	Social Inclusion and Internationalisation
Engagement with E-Learning	Supportive Campus Environment
Career Planning and Employability

Research-based learning

We also included a series of questions to analyse the nature of inquiry and engagement with the research process at the undergraduate level: to analyse the shift from staff-centred to student-centred learning and the transition from 'learning knowledge' to becoming researchers as students progress through their degree programme.