Opinions!of!current!NTU!Students! onthe!requirements!for...
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Opinions of current NTU Students on the requirements for a 21 st Century University campus Research Report December 2014
Transcript of Opinions!of!current!NTU!Students! onthe!requirements!for...
Opinions of current NTU Students
on the requirements for
a 21st Century University campus
Research Report
December 2014
Executive Summary This research was undertaken by Nottingham Trent Students’ Union to provide insight into student attitudes to University and their requirements and priorities for on-‐campus facilities. This data, obtained through a variety of methods, which captured 2,640 pieces of individual feedback, is intended to feed into the 21st Century University strategic planning process the University is currently conducting.
The research draws attention to opinions shared from the wide variety of current, and prospective, Nottingham Trent University students that a 21st Century University should do more than just deliver a degree. The University should look to build a strong portfolio of links to industry and the real-‐world, nationally and internationally. Additionally, there is a need to move to a more interactive style of learning with greater emphasis being placed on learning in smaller seminar groups and peer-‐to-‐peer learning and support networks, alongside remotely accessible on-‐demand learning materials. There needs to be a more varied approach to assessments, with a broad range of assessment methods being used with less weighting being placed on group work and single exams. Finally, there is a growing desire for flexibility and personalisation in the student experience.
Marcus Boswell
President
Introduction
The following research was undertaken by Nottingham Trent Students’ Union at the invitation of the University Executive Team to provide insight into student attitudes to University and their requirements and priorities for on-‐campus facilities. The Union is grateful for the opportunity to be formally involved in the strategic planning process, which has been appreciated by both the Union officers and the students they represent.
The Students’ Union strongly felt that in order to fully understand the strategic needs of students and ensure that their University experience is as valuable and effective as possible, it is vital that opinion be obtained from a significant sample of current, as well as prospective, students.
The main questions this research examines are:
• Why do people come to University? • What do they want to gain from their University experience? • How well does the current delivery of learning materials suit their needs? • How well do current facilities suit their needs? • What should the culture and values of the University be?
Methodology
For the purpose of this study we used the following methods of data capture:
• Online Student Voice web module • Feedback Week interactive feedback gathering • Focus Groups (school-‐specific) • Ideal Campus Workshops (cross-‐school & prospective students) • Open Space event
These research activities allowed us to capture 2,640 pieces of individual student feedback on a wide range of topics including why people come to University, what they want to get out of their University experience, what facilities they require on their campus, and what the culture and values of a University should be.
The findings from each activity are presented as follows.
Research Findings
Student Voice Website Module
This website module is purpose-‐built for students to raise ideas for changes to the student experience that they would like to see. Once an idea goes live on the website, other students can view it and show their support (or lack thereof) by liking or disliking it. This allows us to capture two sets of data; the trends in student-‐related issues, and how widely supported these trends are.
Since launching in October 2014, the Student Voice module has logged 42 individual ideas which have attracted a total of 471 votes. The 5 most popular ideas as of 11/12/14 are:
This list can be further simplified into three broad themes considered important by students:
• inter-‐campus travel • use of technology to enhance and provide flexibility to the learning experience • more flexible access to facilities for students whose course does not follow the undergraduate
academic calendar
Feedback Week
During the week of 27th – 31st October 2014, NTSU conducted a feedback week which used a variety of methods to capture data relating to student preferences with regard to campus facilities and the student experience. Methods used involved single-‐question surveys at points of sale and active on-‐campus feedback gathering exercises.
Point-‐Of-‐Sale Surveys
Voting stations at NTSU point-‐of-‐sale locations where students were presented with a question of the day. Students were given a token which they used to indicate their preference from a range of multiple-‐choice answers by placing it in the relevant slot. This captured a total of 2,043 responses. Many of these questions related to specific areas of Students’ Union activity, however one piece of key feedback we gathered was to do with when academic timetables are released to students.
The overwhelming preference is for timetables to be released 1-‐2 months prior to the academic year (66% of students), with a much lower preference rate for this information to be released either much sooner or much later.
This implies that there is an optimum window of 2 months in which timetable information should be distributed to students. It is also possible that this is an optimum window to release other course-‐related information to students, however this cannot be verified by this research.
Rants and Raves
“Rant and Rave” postcards were used for students to write down their favourite and least favourite aspects of their student experience. We recorded 878 responses from 440 students with a 50:50 split between positive and negative comments (438 “raves” and 440 “rants”). These open-‐end responses covered lots of topics and ideas which we then categorised into four broad recurring themes of teaching, libraries, facilities and Students’ Union. Below are wordles illustrating the main topics mentioned in each area based on frequency of occurrence.
General Rants:
General Raves:
Library Rants:
Library Raves:
Teaching Rants:
Facilities Raves:
Students’ Union Rants:
Students’ Union Raves:
The key points to take away from this feedback are:
• Students general opinion of the University's facilities is very positive but they would like either an increased amount of them or more flexible access to the ones currently available, particularly the library, IT facilities and catering outlets.
• Students really like the atmosphere on campus and think it has a very inclusive community feel to it.
• The library, Students' Union and sports facilities were all rated highly. • Students are generally positive about lecturers but feel there is room for improvement in the
delivery of learning materials, timetabling and assessments. • Inter-‐campus transport are common concerns for students
Similarly, students on campus were asked to write down something they would like to change about their University experience on a portable whiteboard, which we captured with a polaroid camera (116 total individual responses). Specific questions were also asked on feedback walls which students could respond to by writing an answer on a post-‐it note and sticking it to the wall. We sourced 43 individual responses using this method.
The feedback from these exercise echoed that of the rants and raves but also highlighted the following key themes:
• There is a strong desire for access to communal kitchen areas to re-‐heat pre-‐prepared food and access hot water for drinks and snacks.
• There is a strong desire for lectures to be recorded and available via the internet. • There is large variation in the responses about how students wish to be taught and assessed,
which reflects a broad ranges of learning styles; something the University may need to look to address.
• Cost of course materials and food were very common areas of dissatisfaction. • Students see University as a place to gain skills and experience, not just a degree.
The most striking outcome from the above research is that students desire a lot of flexibility in their access to facilities (both academic, social and catering), the delivery of learning materials (in terms of style of delivery and how / when they are accessed) and the assessment of their work. This is something the University may wish to consider as a key part of its strategic planning.
Focus Groups
A series of focus groups with students from each of the nine schools were held to, generate and vote on ideas for change, discuss a specific set of questions, and state their preference for how important they considered specific campus facilities to be. A total of 49 students were involved in the focus groups, with group sizes ranging from 3-‐9 participants.
Part a: Ideas for change
Students were asked to bring one idea for how they think the University could be improved and that their idea should fit one of the following themes:
• The future of lectures • Assessments • Peer to peer learning • Information technology
Group discussion then generated further ideas which were then voted on. Students were not allowed to vote for their own idea. 113 ideas were recorded over the nine focus groups. A full list of ideas generated and votes cast can be found in the appendix but top five ideas generated and the top five supported by votes aggregated across all focus groups are shown in the graphs below:
We can see that the most commonly raised idea was for lectures to be recorded and made accessible via NOW. This single idea was raised 21 times, accounting for 19% of all ideas raised across the groups. The second most common idea raised was for more varied assessments, accounting for 12% of all ideas raised, closely followed by a request for a more interactive style of lecturing, which accounted for 11% of the total number of ideas raised.
How much support each idea was given via the voting process broadly mirrors the popularity of ideas as measured by the number of times they were raised, with 4 out of the top 6 ideas appearing in both metrics:
• Recorded lectures for revision • More varied assessments • More interactive lectures • Cross schools buddy system
However, there was a change in ordering, with more varied assessments being the most widely supported idea with 23 votes (20% of total votes cast), followed by a request for NOW as a mobile app with 17 votes (15%) and recorded lectures, the most commonly raised idea, getting 12 votes (11%).
Many students recognised that NOW is currently mobile-‐optimised in theory, but went out of their way to mention that it has very limited functionality. The broad theme that emerges from these results is that students wish for their learning to be delivered in more of an “on demand” format where they are able access learning materials and lecture content remotely without being tied to a timetable. Similarly, there is a desire for students to have access to support networks through buddy / mentor schemes with other students that, again, is not tied to their academic timetable.
There is of course a certain amount of variance across the requirements of individual schools which can be illustrated by breaking down these aggregated results to show the preferences and priorities of individual schools:
These results show that the ideas which came out top in the aggregated voting results have a lot of cross-‐school support and therefore can be considered to be aspects of a widespread trend of students’ desire for a more flexible approach to learning and assessment. Therefore it is recommended that the following ideas should be strongly considered by the University when planning its strategy for the future delivery of learning materials and assessments:
• Recorded lectures for revision • Use of IT for remote on demand access to learning materials • More varied assessments, including less weighting towards group work in final year • More interactive lectures • Cross schools buddy system
Further to this broad trend, there are some very specific issues for individual schools which generally relate to provision of facilities; ie. more access to plug sockets in teaching rooms for ARES students, or more IT facilities with course-‐specific software for ADBE and NLS students. These are things the University may wish to tackle on a school-‐by-‐school basis rather than as part of a general strategy.
Part b: Q&A session
Each group was presented with a standardised set of thirteen questions and a brief discussion was held around each question (averaging approximately 3 minutes per question). The discussions were recorded by a facilitator for later analysis.
Q1. How do you learn?
This question brought a wide variety of responses (22 individual answers mentioned 47 times in total), which suggests there is a wide variety of learning styles within the student body and that an over-‐reliance on the traditional lecture format does not cater to this variety. There is a clear need to further enhance opportunities for practical, interactive and peer-‐to-‐peer learning as well as for the use of smaller learning groups in the seminar format.
Q2. Do assessments cater for your learning style?
Though there was a degree of satisfaction with how well current assessments cater to preferred learning styles, many students felt that there is scope for improvement in this area. It is hard to draw specific recommendations from this question due to the variety of learning styles identified but there appeared to be some correlation between student satisfaction and the amount of different methods of assessment they encounter. The consensus was that if there is an over-‐reliance on one style of assessment (ie. just exams or just coursework) then it is difficult to fairly grade students, as different assessment methods suit different individuals based on their strengths and weaknesses and therefore have to potential to lead
to biased results. The groups felt that using a wider array of assessment methods gives a truer indication of an individual’s ability and allows for more balanced grading to be achieved.
Q3. How to improve learning / assessments?
This was the most widely discussed question in the groups with 35 individual answers getting 67 mentions. This is clearly a hot topic for students and is perhaps the aspect of University that students expressed the highest levels of dissatisfaction with throughout this study. Several comments indicate the following issues:
There is a preference to learn in smaller groups with scope for discussion. As such there is a desire to move away from traditional lectures and make increased use of the seminar format.
There is a desire for a wider variety of assessments to be used, with less weighting on a single exam or piece of coursework.
There is a desire for there to be minimal weighting on group work for summative assessment in the final year, as many students commented that work is rarely equally distributed amongst a group and some students end up “carrying” others, putting in much more effort but still being graded equally.
Many students felt that they would like specific training sessions on how to effectively approach and present work for particular assessment formats (ie. presentation skills or lab report writing skills).
There is a desire for students to receive feedback on every piece of work they submit for assessment; not just the ones they fail. This way they could see what they have done well, or where they can improve further even though they passed the assessment.
Q4. Does NTU Cater for your learning and assessment needs?
Similarly to Q2, there was a broad level of satisfaction with what NTU currently does in this area, although it was felt that there is scope for improvement. Specific suggestions for this are mentioned in response to the previous question.
Q5. Are you given enough guidance and support for presentations?
Are range of answers were given in response to this question and it would seem that the answer is course-‐specific (and possibly even tutor-‐specific). However, in terms of frequency of response, it would appear that the majority of students do not feel that they are currently given adequate guidance and support for delivering presentations. It was noted by several students that they feel that this lack of skills hinders them in their ability to deliver information and therefore be accurately assessed on their knowledge of a given subject. This echoes the answers given in response to Q3. Where students expressed a desire for workshops or training specifically relating to presentation skills and preparing for various forms of assessment.
Q6. What is a University?
This questions drew a wide range of answers (27 individual answers getting 80 mentions). Almost all of the answers given were related to the theme of personal development, which shows the breadth of ways in which this concept of can be interpreted. The most common answers can be seen in the graph and show clearly that for most people, a University is seen as a place to acquire knowledge and skills which can be put to use in the real world.
Many students also see University as a place where they specialise their learning and development, with several answers such as “a place to shape your career”; “a place to go in a certain direction” and “a place to specialise knowledge” being offered.
Another aspect of University which was identified is that the community and networking opportunities it provides are valued by students, expressed in answers such as “a place to meet people”; “a place to network”; “a place to make contacts” and “a community”.
For others University is seen as “a place where you develop confidence”; “a place to improve your future”; “a place where you grow up” or “a place where you develop life skills” which show how students value a University as a place where personal development takes place.
What is interesting from this range of answers is that nobody explicitly and exclusively said that University is a place to gain a qualification, rather they see the purpose of University as a place where they develop themselves and prepare for the “real world”. Therefore, the 21st Century University needs
to look beyond just delivering qualifications and explore all aspects which contribute to the personal development and knowledge and skills acquisition that make students job-‐ready upon graduation. This includes (but is not limited to) the use of peer-‐to-‐peer learning, industry links, cross-‐collaboration of University knowledge and resources and general skills development as well as classroom-‐based teaching of course materials.
Though several answers given in response to previous questions relating to the delivery of learning materials expressed a strong desire for remotely accessible course content on demand, it is worth noting that the social and community aspects of the University are considered important by students. This would suggest is would not be advisable to provide remote learning materials at the expense of on-‐campus learning, but rather that it is used to supplement and enhance it.
Q7. What do you want to be when you leave University?
The 113 individual answers we received to this question can be broadly categorised into 3 types as shown in the graph. The overwhelming majority of students (74%) gave a career-‐related answer, whereas 20% weren’t sure and 6% expressed a desire to be a well-‐rounded competent individual upon graduation without specifically relating this to any career aspirations. This echoes the strong theme of wanting to be job-‐ready with specialist knowledge that was identified in Q6. However, it is worth remembering that at least 1 in 4 students is not studying with a specific career aim in mind.
Q8. What is most important thing to happen when you leave University?
Reponses to this question show a strong desire for the acquisition of both career-‐specific skills and a good level of general competency and life-‐skills. This mirrors answers to those of Q6 in which students said that they identified a University as a place of personal development as well as a place to acquire specific knowledge to become “job-‐ready”. This would suggest that students require a 21st Century University to provide training around general transferable life skills as well as more specific career-‐based learning.
Q9. Why did you come to University?
The primary motivation for people to come to University is career related (39% of responses). The second most common reason for attending University is that it seems like the natural next step after studying A levels (29%). There is likely a significant degree of cultural expectation in this second group of respondents as many comments such as “it’s what everybody else did” and “it’s just expected” were given. A significant minority attend University for personal development that is not tied to career goals, saying that they wished to develop as a person (12%) or were interested in a topic (10%). A smaller minority appear to come to University for a lack of better options saying they didn’t know what else to do (5%) or were looking for a change of direction (5%). These varying motivations are likely to impact upon an individual’s level of engagement with their education but it is difficult to draw any conclusions on such impacts from this study.
Q10. What should the universities relationship with the outside world be like?
Though slightly different in their specific focus, the overwhelming majority of responses to this question identified a need for a 21st Century University to have strong links with the external world, whether that be the local community or being more connected with businesses and other organisations. Only 13% of respondents wished for University to be something of an academic bubble. This echoes previous findings that people come to University looking to develop in a way that allows them to function effectively in the real world, rather than just gain a qualification. A very small minority of 4% expressed a cautionary note that a University should not just be a “job factory” churning people out for the benefit of future employers which further emphasises the desire for real personal development as well as career-‐related skills.
Q11. What level should the University operate at?
When presented with the options of local, regional, national or international, all 9 groups responded by saying that the University should operate at all of these levels, not any one at the expense of the others. Therefore there is a need for the University to become even more internationalised whilst also continuing to build links closer to home.
Q12. How should the University feel and what should its culture be?
The responses given show a strong preference for an inclusive, diverse and welcoming learning environment, with all 41 responses expressing these themes in one way or another.
Q13. What should the top three values be for the organisation?
Students value equality as the single most important value the University should hold, which echoes the findings of the previous question. Students also feel that the University should be ambitious and forward-‐thinking in its approach to education, while also being supportive and student focused with a strong sense of community.
Does each year count?
The make-‐up of 4 of the 9 groups by year of study was recorded and shows a broadly similar structure for each group. It is not suggested that any conclusions be drawn from this information, it is merely presented for illustrative purposes.
The final task carried out in the school-‐specific focus groups was to draws up a list of every facility they considered necessary and / or desirable on their University campus. This information was then used as the basis for a series of further workshops which are detailed in the next section of this report.
Key findings from this data are:
Students strongly desire a more interactive style of learning, with a greater use of IT to enhance and provide flexibility to the learning experience.
General skills training (such as presentation or report writing skills ) is desired alongside the delivery of subject-‐related content.
Students wish to receive feedback for all pieces of work, not just for ones which fail assessments.
There is a desire for more varied assessment methods to be used, with less weighting towards group work or single exams.
Students want a University to help make them job-‐ready, not just give them a qualification.
Students rate equality as the single most important value for a University.
Ideal Campus Workshops
Based on the campus facilities identified as being important by the focus groups, a series of workshops were held where groups of students from mixed schools were given a list of 60 campus facilities and were asked to combine or reject them however they wished in order to end up with a final list of no more than 50.
Each facility from the final list was represented in the workshop by a plastic box. The groups were then given 500 brightly coloured balls and were asked to assign a number of balls to each box with the quantity of balls being used to represent how important they considered each facility to be.
Eight of these workshops were carried out in total; four at city site, which included a number of prospective students from local colleges around Nottinghamshire, and four at Clifton campus, with a total of 41 Participants across all workshops.
City Site
These workshops resulted in a very clear top 5 facilities for the city site and represent a good view of students’ main needs; academic, accommodation, social and leisure. Key conversation points that stood out include:
• Law School students in particular consider they require all their own facilities. This then led to Business School students asking for their own dedicated facilities, something which angered students from other schools who seemed happy to use shared facilities with all members of the University.
• Students were torn between walking into the nearby city centre to access facilities and wanting cash and vending machines on every corner; in most cases, convenience won out.
• 'Kitchen facilities' (microwave and access to hot water) came up in all groups. • Many groups measured NTU's facilities against those of University of Nottingham’s, wanting
better bus discounts and swimming facilities predominantly because they are aware of these being available at UoN.
• Many discussions uncovered that a number of these facilities already exist but students don't know where or how to access them.
• Whilst outside of the top 5, students consistently rated IT and Health Centre provision highly:
o Students with specialist IT requirements (e.g. CAD) wanted widespread access
o Students would like to see the Health Centre as much more of a one-‐stop shop, including pharmacy, mental health support, and even dentists and opticians (although many argued that with a city centre campus, the dentist and opticians were less important)
Clifton Campus
The results from these workshops illustrate that the on-‐campus needs of Clifton students differ from those based at the city site. Banking facilities and cash points were the number one choice for students, with public transport also in the top 3. These results obviously reflect the more remote nature of Clifton campus which lacks the proximity to public facilities that the city site enjoys. It is also interesting to note that public transport is a higher priority than accommodation (which got an average of 3.15% of the votes), which suggests students prefer to live off-‐campus and travel in for their study. This is perhaps something that tallies with previous findings that students see University as a place for general personal development and show little desire to exist in an academic bubble.
The remaining facilities listed in the top 5 mirror those from the city site, with the library and IT facilities being considered very important and lectures theatres achieving fifth place on the list.
Something worth noting is that the trend for the city results was to pool lots of facilities into various hubs such as Student Support Services or the Students’ Union, whereas the trend for the Clifton groups was to keep individual facilities separate from one another. This may simply be coincidence, but it may also be, at least in part, due to the environmental differences between the more remote enclosed campus nature of Clifton and the central location of the city site.
Though the Students’ Union did not make the top 5 results, when the votes for the SU are combined with those for a pub and a club on campus, it would be the third most popular item on the list with 5.1% of the votes. Some students expressed the desire for a “traditional style pub” as an alternative to the SU bar.
Key conversation points from the workshops include:
• Students really value the library space and IT facilities available at Clifton but there is a desire for either an increased provision, or more flexible access, as all groups pointed out that being able to access facilities at peak times of day is difficult.
• Most of the group were very keen to be able to have a fully functioning mobile app for NOW; something that may be related to the difficulty in accessing IT facilities on campus, but also something which echoes the findings from the focus groups.
• As well as wanting an increase in cash and banking facilities, there was a specific desire for cashpoints which are not located inside the Students’ Union, so that they are accessible when the SU is closed.
• Forensics students in particular would like the book stock to be updated as many law-‐related texts they require are currently only available from the Boots library.
• Conference facilities were considered important for the University as a whole but were down-‐weighted as it was assumed that these would primarily be
based at the city site. • Food provision is seen as an issue on campus with all groups saying they would like easier access
to food for home-‐cooking via on-‐campus markets, and also access to kitchen facilities with microwaves and hot water for reheating pre-‐cooked meals. Many students mentioned that currently their only option is to eat meals from catering outlets on campus. While they were generally happy with the food offered by catering outlets, they feel restricted as what is offered is only available during limited opening hours. Students also find it expensive to eat catered food every day.
• Similarly to the city workshops, students consistently rated Health Centre provision highly, even though it fell outside of the top 5. Going against the Clifton trend for separate facilities, students would like to see the Health Centre as much more of a one-‐stop shop, including pharmacy, mental health support, dentists and opticians.
• One group suggested that there is a need for a nursery but it does not need to be on campus – just in close proximity and easily accessible for those visiting campus.
Open space event
Six individual stations were set up around The Level in the city Students’ Union building, each with a specific topical theme, and a facilitator on each station. Students were asked to walk around the venue and get involved with whatever whichever discussion they wanted to get involved with and verbally contribute their own opinions and ideas on the topic. They were encouraged to go to any station for as long or as short as they felt they could contribute and that any comments were valuable. 42 students took part in the event.
Key findings:
• A 21st Century University is largely about employability. Getting a job is a key student focus. • There should be the option for short term, international exchanges and opportunities. • Assessment and teaching should be personalised, with students choosing how and when they
learn. • Value is placed on having experts come in and speak – real life experience is seen as hugely
important. • If the degree costs £9k, there should be options to feed in to learning. Students should be seen
as partners and input into the University decisions.
Conclusion
We would like to thank the University for giving us the opportunity to conduct this research and gain a very valuable insight into student opinion, priorities and motivations relating to their student experience. The breadth of this research has highlighted several key issues relating to the student experience and recommends the following key concepts for consideration in the strategic planning of a 21st Century University:
• A 21st Century University should to do more than just deliver a degree. It needs to develop individuals and prepare them for the real world, ensuring they are job ready and possess a mix of specific industry skills as well as key transferable skills.
• There is a need to move away from traditional lecturing to a more interactive style of learning. Greater emphasis should be placed on learning in smaller seminar groups and peer-‐to-‐peer learning and support networks.
• IT should be used to deliver learning in a more engaging, innovative and flexible manner. The delivery of remotely accessible on-‐demand learning materials should be a key part of the learning experience in a 21st Century University.
• The University should look to become more internationalised and build a strong portfolio of links to industry and the real-‐world.
• There needs to be a more varied approach to assessments, with a broad range of assessment methods being used with less weighting being placed on group work and single exams.
• There is a growing trend for flexibility and personalisation in the student experience; both in terms of how learning material is delivered and accessed and also in how their work is assessed. A one size fits all approach is not the vision of the future.
