Essex students most positive in East of England

The latest National Student Survey (NSS) results show the University of Essex is top for positive feedback from its students in the East of England.

This year’s NSS asked students how positive they were about their courses across seven key themes. Essex is ranked 30th in England for 'overall positivity' across all questions following feedback from students at 100 English broad-discipline higher education institutions and further analysis by Times Higher Education.

This means Essex is first in the East of England for the 'overall positivity' measure and also in the top 10 for learning resources and top 20 for academic support.

90.8% of Essex students said they were positive about their learning resources including IT resources and facilities, library resources and access to subject-specific resources.

88% of Essex students were positive about their academic support including how easy it is to contact teaching staff and how well supported they felt. On individual questions, 91.9% said that staff were good at explaining things. 

More than 2,000 Essex students fed back their views on their experience at Essex through the NSS and Essex saw improvements in positivity scores across seven of the eight key themes. 

Strengths in our departments

Strong performances within departments include East 15 Acting School receiving 96% positivity scores for 'teaching on my course', 'learning opportunities' and 'academic support'; Edge Hotel School received 100% for 'academic support' ', 92% for ‘teaching on my course’, 94% for ‘learning opportunities’, 95% for assessment and feedback’ and 90% for ‘learning resources’; the School of Philosophical, Historical, and Interdisciplinary Studies was above 90% across three themes; School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science received 95% for 'academic support' and 96% for 'learning resources'; the Department of Economics received 90% for 'academic support', 94% for 'organisation and management' and 94% for 'learning resources'.

The National Student Survey gives students the chance to look back on their higher education experience and speak out on everything from the teaching on their course, access to resources and equipment, and even about the student voice. 

When looking at individual questions Essex is ranked in the top 20 for six questions covering everything from support for learning to opportunities to feedback on courses and contact with teaching staff. 

Professor Eacott said: “At Essex we really value feedback from our students, so it was pleasing to see that we are ranked top 15 amongst English broad discipline higher education institutions for students reporting that they get the right opportunities to give feedback on their courses.  

“We want to listen to our students so we can work with our Students’ Union and our staff to continually improve the educational experience at Essex. We will continue to work with our students to deliver the highest quality learning opportunities and transformative education.” 

Overall positivity scores

The Overall Positivity score reflects the Times Higher Education (THE) analysis published on 12 July 2024. This methodology looks at the sum of the positive responses (‘very good’ and ‘good’) across the core 26 questions in the NSS divided by the applicable answers. 

This article refers to ‘English broad-discipline higher education institutions’ as defined by the ‘Cluster Analysis of Higher Education Institutions’ for Research England, 2018, updated in 2022.

The East of England includes Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

Full NSS results are published at: www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/national-student-survey-data/provider-level-dashboard/

This article was updated on 12 July 2024 to reflect the latest analysis published by Times Higher Education.