National Student Survey - NSS

The National Student Survey (NSS) gathers students’ opinions on the quality of their courses which helps to:

inform prospective students’ choices
provide data that supports universities and colleges to improve the student experience
support public accountability.

Every university in the UK takes part in the NSS, as do many colleges. Response rates are consistently high.

The NSS is managed by the OfS on behalf of the UK funding and regulatory bodies – the Department for the Economy (Northern Ireland), the Scottish Funding Council and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales.

The OfS and UK funding and regulatory bodies have issued the National Student Survey (NSS) 2024 launch publication, which sets out the arrangements for the survey and the actions required from participating providers.

For 2024, the NSS questionnaire will be the same as the NSS 2023.

The survey will be delivered across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. However, the freedom of expression question will be asked to students in England only and the overall satisfaction question will be asked to students in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland only.

The optional bank questions and their response scales will remain the same in 2024 using the Likert response scale. These are being explored as part of further work in 2023-24.

See the full list of NSS 2024 questions

Archive

See information about the 2023 survey

In 2020 the Office for Students (OfS) and the UK funding and regulatory bodies began a two-stage review of the NSS with an aim to ensure the NSS remains fit for purpose and continues to support regulation and student information across the UK.

In 2022, we consulted on potential changes to the NSS that would take effect from 2023, and we have now published the analysis of responses and our decisions.

As a result, the survey questions and response scales have changed for NSS 2023. The changes include:

a new 4-point item specific response scales will replace the Likert response scale
a new additional question on mental wellbeing services
a new additional question on freedom of expression, which will be asked to students in England only
the final summative question will be asked to students in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland only.

The optional bank questions and their response scales will remain the same. These will be explored further in 2023-24.

We have also updated the methodology used for identifying students who are eligible for the healthcare, allied health and clinical practice placements questions (previously known as NHS practice placement questions). This expands coverage of these questions to include all students studying a course that is associated with a health or social care regulatory body. This includes students studying pre-registration nursing, midwifery, allied health profession, social work and clinical practice subjects.

See the full list of NSS 2023 questions

See information about the 2022 survey

For NSS 2022, the core questions did not change, but there were a few changes to parts of the survey in agreement with the UK funding and regulatory bodies:

To reduce the burden on universities and colleges during and in the aftermath of the pandemic, providers in England were not required to promote the survey to their students.
All providers were automatically included in a booster phase to send additional reminders to their non-responding students if their response rates were below 43 per cent.
The questions about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the student experience were not repeated in the 2022 survey.
As part of the NSS review, a pilot survey ran alongside the NSS 2022 survey between January and March 2022 for a sample of students.

Providers can access their own detailed NSS results including subject-level question responses and open text comments results via the NSS Results Portal.

The NSS data is published in the same way as in previous years; however, there are minor changes in the way the data is presented:

Alongside the NSS 2022 results, an average agreement rate based on the results from 2020, 2021 and 2022, with each year weighted evenly, is published.
Healthcare placement questions are not published as part of the NSS data on the OfS website. The publication of this data is in review for 2023. Providers are able to receive their own responses to these questions through the NSS Results Portal.

See the complete questionnaire used for the National Student Survey 2022 (PDF)

See information about the 2021 survey

For NSS 2021, the core questions did not change, but there were a few changes to parts of the survey which had been developed in agreement with the UK funding and regulatory bodies:

To reduce the burden on universities and colleges during the pandemic, providers in England were not required to promote the 2021 survey to their students.
All providers were automatically included in a booster phase to send additional reminders to their non-responding students if their response rates were below 43 per cent.
A new set of questions were included to ask students about specific aspects of their experience during the coronavirus pandemic. Students chose whether to answer these additional questions and submitted their feedback on this topic after they completed the core questions.

The COVID-19 question results were not published at provider level, but the findings were presented by several broader sector splits such as subject and mode.

Providers can access their own detailed NSS results including subject-level question responses, open text comments and COVID-19 question results via the NSS Results Portal.

To see information on how the NSS results and Covid-19 question results could be used by providers, please see the related FAQs.

The NSS data was published in the same way as in previous years; however the OfS and UK funding and regulatory bodies took some decisions in the way that the NSS 2021 data was presented:

Alongside the NSS 2021 results, an average agreement rate based on the results from 2019, 2020 and 2021, with each year weighted evenly, was published.
The 2021 statistics are based purely on 2021 data.
NHS placement questions are not published as part of the NSS data on the OfS website. Providers are able to receive their own responses to these questions through the NSS Results Portal.

See the complete questionnaire used for the NSS 2021.

Last updated 24 October 2023 + show all updates

24 October 2023: Added link to guidance for NSS 2024.
24 October 2023: Changed to reflect the details of the 2024 survey.
10 August 2023: Updated to reflect details of the 2023 NSS.
29 June 2023: Added intended date for publication of data for NSS 2023
06 June 2023: Minor updates to the page as the consultation on the approach to publication of results for NSS 2023 has now closed.
29 March 2023: NSS 2023 example results files published, accompanying the new consultation on our approach to publishing NSS results for the 2023 survey and beyond
14 December 2022: Full list of NSS 2023 questions published
09 November 2022: Detail about the 2023 survey added, and link to full guidance for providers
06 July 2022: NSS 2022 results published
06 July 2022: Results infographics published for NSS 2022
25 October 2021: Information added on NSS 2022 and link to guidance for providers
15 July 2021: Updated with 2021 NSS data
07 June 2021: Added link to plans for publication of NSS 2021
14 January 2021: Information added regarding new coronavirus pandemic questions in the survey
26 October 2020: Added link to the publication detailing arrangements for the 2021 NSS, and updated NSS questionnaire
24 September 2020: Link added to details of the review of the NSS.
15 July 2020: Page updated with the results of the 2020 NSS
10 June 2020: Update on the publication of the 2020 National Student Survey data
07 May 2020: Added link to information about the publication of NSS 2020 data
19 February 2020: Added link to the NSS 2020 publication

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National Student Survey - NSS

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