Associations between characteristics of students

These datafiles show how likely groups of full-time or part-time students are to respond positively to the National Student Survey (NSS) based on a single or multiple characteristics.

Quintile 1 shows groups of students who are the least likely to respond positively to the NSS.

Quintile 5 are the most likely to respond positively to the NSS.

We have calculated these measures for UK-domiciled students studying at English providers who responded to question 16 of the NSS (“How well have teaching staff support your learning?”).

Where an attribute is given for each of the characteristics, then 100 per cent of students will be in a single quintile. Otherwise, the data shows the distribution of students holding the given characteristics across the five quintiles.

The column showing “derived quintile” shows the quintile derived for this student group, based on a weighted average of the distribution of individuals across all the quintiles. This is given when one or more the characteristics is listed as “any_[characteristic]” (see the methodology document available from the ABCS overview page for more information).

For NSS full-time quintiles, the following characteristics are used:

• Age group - the student's age when they started their course.
• Disability type - the student's self-reported disability status.
• Estrangement - whether a student has ever reported being estranged from their parents.
• Ethnicity - the student's self-reported detailed ethnicity.
• Free school meal (FSM) eligibility - whether or not the student has been eligible to receive free school meals (FSM) in the six years prior to the March census date in their final year of key stage four (year 11).
• Religious belief - religious belief as self-reported by the student.
• Sex - sex as self-reported by the student.
• Sexual orientation - sexual orientation as self-reported by the student.

For NSS part-time quintiles, the following characteristics are used:

• Age group - the student's age when they started their course.
• Disability type - the student's self-reported disability status.
• Broad ethnicity - the student's self-reported broad ethnicity. 
• Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI) quintile - a measure of the proportion of children under the age of 16 in low-income households for an area. Only produced for students domiciled in England.
• Local or distance learner - whether or not students live locally to their higher education provider or are distance learners.
• Parental education - whether any of the student's parents have any higher education qualifications.
• Sex - sex as self-reported by the student.