Student Satisfaction Survey 2009-2010
Departmental Response
The 2010 Student Satisfaction Survey results for CISH are mostly very gratifying. The headline results of are that, in terms of ‘overall satisfaction’, students on the BA Humanities and on US Studies awarded a score of 100%, while European Studies achieved 82%.
A weaker result was achieved in Latin American Studies, with an overall satisfaction score of 60%, which is below the identical University and Faculty averages of 92%. It is important to note, however, that the Latin American results are based on 5 respondents and so must be treated as statistically unreliable, and that there were specific issues affecting satisfaction in the year concerned that have since been addressed. The results in all areas concealed some significant variations and the BA Latin American Studies has the most exaggerated differences, differences that explain its lower overall score. Of particular concern is the score of only 40% satisfaction given in relation to the match between expectations and content of the BA Latin American Studies, and the same score awarded for the ‘timetabling’ and ‘smooth running’ of the programme. The same respondents also awarded 100% scores for the way the course content ‘enables understanding and knowledge’, 100% for every question relating to the quality of teaching (this is the best result in CISH in this part of the survey) alongside a number of other 100% scores across a variety of questions. It has become clear that the low overall score for Latin American Studies was caused in part by the dissatisfaction students felt over the non-availability of certain key options. The low score for operational issues may reflect staffing instability in the CISH office during the year surveyed, and this is borne out by lower than expected scores in this section for the other Programmes in CISH. The programme in Latin American Studies has been revised and improved; the first year module has been entirely restructured with the support of the Dean and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and there is also now better provision of second and final year modules in Sociology and Government. It is therefore expected that the SSS results for the current year will be much more in line with the other CISH programmes. The CISH office is now working extremely well, and again we expect to see an improvement in the responses to operational questions.
The only section of the CISH SSS where there seems to be a clear pattern suggesting a need for action is for ‘Learning Resources’, a group of questions that concern library and computing access among other things. ‘Personal Development’ has a somewhat lower set of scores across the areas than other sections, and this is something that students will be consulted upon in greater detail via the Staff Student Liaison Committee.
Some University-wide issues emerge in the survey and these will be passed on for consideration to the University management.
Neil Cox, Head of Centre, February 2011