National Student Survey - NSS

Sector-level characteristic analysis

This page contains analysis of NSS data from the 2019 and 2020 National Student Surveys.

The analysis shows sector-level NSS results split by six student and course characteristics, alongside calculated benchmark values. It can be used to explore the extent to which responses to the NSS differ across student groups.

This data has been developed as an experimental statistic. We are keen to receive user feedback on this data, which will inform how it is used and updated in future. Feedback can be sent to [email protected].

What do these charts show?

These charts show the percentage of respondents who agreed (selected ‘Definitely agree’ or ‘Mostly agree’) to each question and scale in the NSS in the 2019 and 2020 surveys. A scale is a group of questions addressing the same theme.

The responses are displayed according to six student and course characteristics:

age
gender
ethnicity
disability status
subject classification
mode of study.

For each characteristic, benchmark values have been calculated using the remaining five.

The first chart shows the percentage of respondents who agreed to the selected question or scale alongside the benchmark value, split by the selected characteristic.

The second chart shows the difference between the percentage of respondents who agreed and the benchmark value, split by the selected characteristic.

Both charts show the degree of certainty we have that the difference between the percentage of respondents who agreed and the benchmark value is statistically significant.

The data is shown separately for UK-domiciled and overseas students. Categories will not be shown where the response rate is lower than 50 per cent and there are fewer than 10 responses.

Summary of the key findings

Some differences from benchmarks are seen across all the groupings we considered. It is particularly prevalent across the subject groupings. This means that responses to the NSS tend to vary across subjects, even when other factors are taken into account. However, we find more significant differences when we group students by disability status or age. This is partly due to the larger numbers in these populations and the smaller number of categories within each group.
Significant differences from benchmarks are most common in the Learning Community scale. This means that responses to the questions within the scale are particularly likely to vary by student group, in a way that cannot be accounted for by the benchmarking factors. Outside this scale, question 15 ('The course is well organised and running smoothly') also stands out as having agreement rates for student groups that often differ from their benchmarks.
UK domiciled and overseas domiciled students are treated separately in the analysis. Within these broad domicile groupings, the patterns of agreement by student group are broadly similar. Fewer significant differences from benchmarks are found for the overseas domiciled students, but this is at least partly due to the smaller populations.
The analysis covers responses from the 2019 and 2020 NSS surveys. Between these two years, the agreement rates per student group and the extent to which they differ from their benchmarks has remained largely stable.

Get the data

The raw data for these charts is available to download below.

The raw data includes fields that are not shown in the charts, but are used in deriving the fields shown and provide additional information. A full description of the fields included in the raw data is contained in the methodology document.

NSS characteristic analysis data

XLSX, 391Kb

Download the data for the NSS characteristic analysis interactive chart

Methodology document

PDF, 275Kb

This methodology document explains how this data has been produced.