Sexual misconduct survey

The sexual misconduct survey aims to understand whether university or college students have experienced sexual harassment or sexual assault/violence.

It considers their experiences since they became a student, and inside and outside a university or college setting.

The survey has two separate sections:

1. Sexual harassment
   This section asks about experiences of unwanted behaviours of a sexual nature.
2. Sexual assault/violence
   This section asks about experiences of unwanted sexual contact.

The survey also seeks to understand students’ experiences of their institution’s reporting processes and intimate relationships between staff and students.

The questions cover three areas: sexual harassment, sexual assault and intimate relationships between staff and students.

The survey is asked as a follow-up set of questions to the National Student Survey (NSS). All students in England who complete the NSS – final-year undergraduates – are eligible to complete it.

Why we run this survey

There is currently limited data on sexual misconduct affecting students in higher education in England.

Existing evidence includes quantitative data on the experience of crimes, small-scale surveys and polls, and research generally carried out at provider level.

The nature of this evidence means that we do not have reliable data on the extent or scale of the issue of sexual misconduct in higher education.

By surveying students on a national scale, we hope to:

• understand the prevalence of sexual misconduct experienced by students
• gain insight on how and where interventions might be targeted to tackle sexual misconduct
• test an approach to capturing prevalence data at a national level.