Latest NSS results show Bristol Uni student satisfaction higher than national average

By Maddy Russell, News Editor and Teddy Coward, Investigations Editor

The most recent National Student Survey has shown student satisfaction to be at 85 per cent overall, an increase of three per cent on last year.

According to the NSS, which takes annual findings across all UK higher education institutions, the University of Bristol scored one per cent higher than the overall sector average.

Bristol’s score was found to be equal that of the University of Birmingham; and was one per cent higher than the University of Manchester and the University of Nottingham; but one per cent lower than the University of Leeds.

The survey took the views from a sample of over 3000 final year undergraduates from Bristol, who either ‘definitely’ or ‘mostly’ agreed in high numbers that ‘staff are good at explaining things’ (91 per cent ), that their ‘course is intellectually stimulating’ (90 per cent) and they ‘have been able to access course-specific resources when needed to’ (89 per cent).

Professor Tansy Jessop, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education, said: ‘These results are encouraging, although they do follow a particularly difficult year in 2018. They indicate that the actions we have taken and continue to take are making a positive difference to students. We have improved on our institutional results from last year across all question sets.’

Other aspects of University life did not receive such high scores, with 65 per cent of students saying that they ‘feel part of a community of staff and students’ and 67 per cent agreeing with the statement that they ‘have received helpful comments on work’.

One recent graduate said to Epigram: ‘It’s good to know we’re at a University which scored solidly and did better than last year, which is what you’d expect from a Russell Group Uni. I think though, like with all statistics, these results do potentially mask some things.

‘People being able to find the resources they need or contact staff is of course good, but those raise the overall satisfaction level, bringing up other areas [scored by the survey] that still need a lot of work and might even be a bit more important to people’s wellbeing.’

Professor Tansy Jessop has marked the University’s ‘priority action area’ as being able to ‘bring about positive changes in assessment and feedback to the benefit of students and staff, drawing on examples of current exemplary practice at Bristol.’

Jessop said that she was ‘looking forward to working with colleagues to build on our strengths in the coming weeks and months.’

Featured Image credit: Epigram / Cameron Scheijde

Do you feel the NSS results accurately reflect the student experience at Bristol?