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Survey results show improvements in every area of student experience
25 January 2022
The 2021-22 Student Experience Survey, UCL's annual survey of penultimate year undergraduates, shows encouraging results across all categories.
The UCL Student Experience Survey (SES) offers penultimate year undergraduates the chance to score and give open-text feedback about their experience so far.
The SES is a particularly valuable source of student feedback as departments can review and respond to issues raised in the results and comments before these students have finished their programme.
Response rate
More than 1,000 UCL students completed the survey between 15 November and 17 December 2021. This is a higher overall turnout than last year’s survey, although the response rate has declined slightly year-on-year to 15% UCL-wide.
Improvements in all areas
The trends in UCL’s results were overwhelmingly positive, with scores improving for each of the themes:
- Overall Satisfaction climbed to 79% (an increase of seven percentage points since last year)
- Satisfaction with Teaching climbed to 79% (up one point year-on-year)
- Satisfaction with Learning Opportunities climbed to 76% (up four points)
- Satisfaction with Assessment and Feedback climbed to 63% (up 10 points)
- Satisfaction with Academic Support rose to 73% (up seven points)
- Satisfaction with Organisation and Management also reached 73% (up four points)
- Satisfaction with Learning Resources rose to 83% (up 14 points)
- Students’ satisfaction with their Learning Community climbed to 64% (up 12 points)
- Satisfaction with Student Voice opportunities and impact rose to 61% (up one point)
We're especially pleased to report that UCL-wide scores for Teaching, Assessment and Feedback, Academic Support, and Organisation and Management are now higher than scores before the pandemic. While there is always room for further improvement, these increased scores recognise the incredible efforts by staff to provide a rich academic experience amid ongoing uncertainty and reflect positively on our approach to education this year.
Last year's survey took place in February-March 2021 when lockdown-enforced closures of libraries and learning resources were in place. Some of the improved scores, particularly the sharp rises in Learning Resources and Learning Community results may reflect our community's excitement at being back on campus.
A large increase in Assessment and Feedback scores coincides with widespread use of online exams and the introduction of the AssessmentUCL platform for centrally-managed assessments last year. Analysis of the open text comments will provide a clearer picture of what part this as played in the 10-point improvement.
Download the full survey results
You can download the full SES 2021-22 results at department, faculty and programme levels (UCL log-in required).
Anonymised open text comments from the survey will be shared with the relevant academic departments and support services in February, to help them understand some of the reasons behind these numerical results.
How we use these results
SES results can be discussed in Staff-Student Consultative Committees and also form part of the data set for the Annual Student Experience Review (ASER) in each academic department.
Some departments and faculties also follow-up on the survey with focus groups to discuss the SES results and how to make further improvements in partnership with students. Read more about how your feedback is shaping UCL.
Find more opportunities to make your voice heard and help shape your education and student experience.