The National Student Survey (NSS)

Ipsos MORI's gold standard higher education research project is the (NSS), which we have conducted annually since 2005 on behalf of HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) and key partners. The NSS is an opportunity for students in their final year of a course leading to undergraduate credits or qualifications across the UK to give feedback on their academic experience. The results are:

• Published on Unistats to help future students make informed choices about the courses that best suit their needs and interests
• Made available to the participating universities, colleges and students’ unions to help facilitate best practice and enhance the student learning experience.

The NSS is a complex survey which employs a mixed methodology approach of online, postal and telephone methods to achieve a final response rate of at least 50% from the 350,000 or so students eligible each year.

The fieldwork for the 2009 NSS has now closed, with the data scheduled for publication in the autumn. In the meantime, data from the previous years of the survey can be found on HEFCE’s website.