Case Study

A detailed case study will be undertaken to explore the student experience in the Case Study School and to use the insights gained to produce a conceptual framework for methods the School can use to improve the student experience. As detailed in Figure 18, the case study relies on data from multiple sources to explore the phenomenon and the context of the study.

In addition to a critical review of the literature, an exploration of relevant documentation will be undertaken relating to university policy and procedure relating to teaching, learning and assessment and any policy relating to the NSS. This will explore the experiences of each school in achieving set performance targets; review any measures that have proven successful in improving NSS scores and also any perceived barriers to the policy implementation. This will be supplemented with information regarding typical cohorts of undergraduate students within Case Study School including information relating to average cohort size, age, gender, mode of study, entry grades. A trend analysis will be undertaken of the quantitative results of the NSS over a seven-year period of time for each programme within the School. This can be used to show any changes over time, any significant differences between different reporting periods and any trends. The NSS provides the students with an opportunity to include comments regarding any issue considered by the survey and these comments are provided in addition to the quantitative data. These verbatim comments provide a rich source of data relating to issues contributing to a positive or negative experience and an analysis of the comments over the seven-year period will be undertaken using the Nvivo 10 to identify key themes and issues affecting the students. This analysis will consider matters that impact positively and negatively on the student experience. The identified key themes and issues will be further investigated with students using semi-structured interviews to explore these matters in some detail. Direct observation of the environment in which the teaching, learning and assessment is taking place to further support the contextualisation of the case study will be undertaken as necessary.

4.9.1 Institutional Context

There are clear issues with trying to compare higher education institutions. Many factors such as the history and reputation of an institution, the demographics of the student body and the programmes of study offered are likely to impact on the expectations of students and the experience they receive. Many universities specialise in different fields such as medicine, business, law or arts and media. Research suggests that some students respond differently to student surveys than others (Wiers-Jenssen et al., 2002). Students at medical schools generally respond more positively than do students on applied art or arts subjects. Students undertaking engineering courses appear to be the most reluctant to respond. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the means of completing the survey influences the responses in terms of levels of satisfaction and those early responders to the survey are more satisfied than later responders. (Williams & Cappuccini‐Ansfield, 2007).

The original University of Salford, then called the Salford Technical Institute, was founded in 1896 to meet the demands of the thriving industries in the region at that time. The two universities finally merged into a single institution in 1996 – exactly 100 years after the formation of the original Royal Technical Institute. The University of Salford is committed to widening access to higher education for all parts of the community and is proud to be in the top 10 HE institutions for widening participation for all applicants.

Student Profile

• 51.5% female, 48.5% male.

• 22.6% of UK-based undergraduate new entrants are from black or minority ethnic backgrounds.

• 64.3% of UK-based undergraduate students are mature (over 21) on entry. • Entry requirements are between 220 and 320 UCAS tariff points.

4.9.2 BUILT ENVIRONMENT CONTEXT

The results of the National Student Survey (NSS) reveal that the overall satisfaction levels with built environment courses are on average lower than that of other subjects

(Higher Education Academy, 2012). Built environment programmes have consistently underperformed on the National Student Survey when compared to the “all subject” results. This is of concern to institutions offering built environment programmes and to some extent to those stakeholders who rely on the university sector to provide a high quality education that meets the requirements of the industry and the professional bodies. Built Environment higher education provides the construction industry with a supply of graduates to undertake the professional roles within the sector that is increasingly important as university level programmes are becoming the norm for managerial roles and professional body recognition. In order to attract high quality applicants to built environment programmes and to the construction industry, it is important to understand the reasons for the lower satisfaction levels to ensure these issues can be addressed to produce a more positive outcome. As demonstrated in Table 7 below, built environment programmes are underperforming when compared with ‘all-courses’ with some significant differences between the built environment programmes available. Building Surveying has the lowest satisfaction levels of all the programmes with Real Estate producing the highest satisfaction.

Table 7: Comparison of sector scores for overall satisfaction with the course. The Higher Education Academy (2013)

The results for Built Environment programmes at the University of Salford appear to conform to the identified trend for Built Environment students reporting they are less satisfied than other students nationally (HEA, 2012) and students studying within the

same institution. The complex interaction between the identified factors that will impact on the NSS results for built environment programmes does present challenges for institutions and programme teams in their efforts to improve the student experience. The institutional context also provides an important dimension relating to all the above factors. The size of the institution, the cohort size, facilities and the demographics of the cohort etc. will impact on any measures taken to improve student satisfaction and it is unlikely that a one-size fits all approach will provide the required improvements.

Built Environment students do present particular challenges in improving satisfaction rates. The research indicates that as a subject group, Built Environment students are less satisfied that the other students on average, male students generally are less likely to report they are satisfied with the student experience (HEA, 2012), part-time students are less satisfied than full-time students and the type of institution plays a role. The results of the NSS for University of Salford Built Environment programmes compared with the average for the University and the average results for all higher education over a four-year period of time. The results paint a mixed picture with some significant fluctuations in satisfaction levels particularly relating to the Building Surveying programme. The results are interesting given some aspects of the student experience will be the same for all programmes e.g. the organisation and management, the facilities at the institution including library and I.T etc. An interesting aspect of the results relates to the differences in reported satisfaction rates given many of the modules on each programme are taught jointly with all programmes.

4.10 Semi-structured interviews