Imperial scores best ever National Student Survey results

Imperial has scored an all-time high in this year's NSS results which sees it rise 15 places in the national NSS rankings.

This year’s survey saw 88% of survey participants “definitely” or “mostly” agree that their overall experience was satisfactory – an improvement of 1% on last year’s results.

The College maintains its position as the joint top Russell Group university in London alongside Queen Mary, finishing ahead of UCL, LSE and Kings, and seventh in the city overall, an increase of four places since last year’s survey.

The College now ranks above the sector-wide average for all categories across the survey except Assessment and Feedback (-5%), with student satisfaction overall 2% higher than the national average of 86%.

In total eighteen departments increased their overall satisfaction scores and others such as Maths saw a rise in key areas such as Teaching and Assessment and Feedback. The department’s overall satisfaction of 92% also saw it moving into the top 25 departments nationally for the first time.

Professor Debra Humphris, Vice-Provost Education, said: “This year’s results are the continuation of a trend that has seen our student satisfaction improving year on year across the College.

“They are the result of a long-term commitment from the many people from across the Imperial community who work to ensure we are providing the academic environment for our students to flourish.  

“These results are good but we are not complacent and we won’t stop focussing on improving the student experience here at the College to provide the world-class educational experience our students expect.”

The results also saw an improvement for Imperial College Union increasing their satisfaction amongst its members to 78%, putting it in the top 25 students’ unions in the country – an increase of 11 places on last year.

Imperial College Union President Lucinda Sandon-Allum said: “We are glad to see the College continuing to make efforts to improve the student experience at Imperial. The Union’s own results this year have shown another marked increase and we are now confidently one of the leading students' unions in the UK. 

“The Union will continue to work closely with the College, publishing its response to the NSS in the autumn, aiming to build on this year’s results and make sure Imperial is the best it can be.”

Spotlight on Mechanical Engineering

The Department of Mechanical Engineering were one of the big improvers this year with overall satisfaction increasing 8% to 96% - putting it third nationally for the discipline.

Dr Michael Bluck, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Mechanical Engineering puts the improvements down to a renewed emphasis within the department on being responsive to the needs of its students: “The staff in the department have always tried to make sure that we’re communicating and working closely with students but now I feel we have the processes and systems in place to do it really well.”

“We’ve got a strong network of student reps in the department with students feeding in to decisions on the Student-Staff and Course Committees. We also make sure that we’re not only giving reps a chance to feed in but we’re making sure when decisions have been taken that we’re feeding back to students what they are and why it’s happened.

The department also saw a strong improvement in satisfaction of 8% for Assessment and Feedback, taking it to 94%. “We’ve really tried to make feedback a central part of the learning process. Making sure students know what to expect, staff know what they need to provide and looking at what forms this feedback can take. By scheduling specific sessions and timetabling meetings to discuss students’ work, they’ve felt like they’re getting the help they need to improve going forward.

Michael points out some of the challenges the department has overcome to achieve this year’s results: “We were quite worried what the effect of the ongoing building work would have on this year’s survey. We’ve tried to keep disruption to a minimum but there’s always bits you can’t avoid. I think the strong communication we have with our students, making sure they know as soon as we do what changes need to be made, has meant it’s not been as much of an issue as we feared.”

Spotlight on Bioengineering

Bioengineering was another department that recorded strong results this year, seeing their overall satisfaction increasing by 5% to 97%, 13% above the sector average.

Director of Courses, Dr Mengxing Tang, put the department’s success down to its focus on making sure students are supported and listened to in the department: “We’re working hard to make sure students are included in teaching decisions – we have a student rep on the Teaching Committee to make sure their voice is heard at all levels in the department. The department is working hard to establish a good teaching team. We’ve made structural changes to support learning and it’s really paying off.

“We’re one of the top departments to use lecture recording – our Panopto usage for undergraduate teaching is 93%. There was a great demand for it from students in their feedback so we’re now doing it wherever we can. It’s just another example that we endeavour to listen to students and support their learning.”

One area of particular success was the department’s score for Personal Development which saw a 10% increase to 88%.

“Bioengineering is a comparatively new discipline and as a result we don’t have those long held industry relationships like other areas of engineering” Mengxing points out, “and as a result we’ve had to work hard to form those networks for students. We’ve appointed an Industrial Liaison Officer who provides training for students on professional skills and links them up with industry. Students are seeing more and more engagement with industry across the department and feeling more confident about their future careers as a result.”