Postgraduate Research Experience Survey 2008 Final report

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Figure 1. Overall experience of the programme: variations between institutions Students were asked to rate how important they thought particular aspects of their research degree programme were to successful completion, how satisfied they were with those aspects, and the extent to which their experiences of those aspects had met or exceeded their expectations. The results are summarised in Table 3. Students rated supervisory support and guidance as the most important aspect of their research degree programme (95.7% rated it as important or very important: Figure 2), followed by opportunities to develop a range of research skills (91.3%), access to appropriate facilities (90.1%), the research environment (87.3%), provision of guidance on institutional standards and expectations (78.1%) and opportunities to develop a range of transferable skills (74.3%). Scores and rankings were almost identical in the 2007 and 2008 surveys. Students ranked their satisfaction with aspects of the research degree programme in almost exactly the same sequence as they ranked importance, although percentage agreement and mean scores were consistently much lower for each aspect (Figure 2). In decreasing order of satisfaction, they rated supervisory support and guidance (71.2%), opportunities to develop a range of research skills (62.7%), access to appropriate facilities (62.0%), the research environment (57.4%), opportunities to develop a range of transferable skills (54.1%) and provision of guidance on institutional standards and expectations (49.9%). There was no question explicitly relating to satisfaction in PRES 2007. Figure 2. Summary of ratings for importance, satisfaction and experience against expectations Supervisory support and guidance Research skills Access to appropriate facilities The research environment Provision of guidance on institutional standards and expectations for the research degree programme Transferable skills 62.7 62.0 57.4 49.9 54.1 79.0 71.2 95.7 82.9 91.3 78.2 90.1 75.4 87.3 75.8 78.1 82.4 74.3 Expectation Satisfaction Importance 12 The Higher Education Academy – PRES 2008
Figure 2 summarises student responses with regard to importance (the percentage rating that factor ‘important’ and ‘very important’), satisfaction (the percentage rating themselves ‘satisfied’ and ‘very satisfied’ with that factor) and experience against expectations (the percentage rating their experience of that factor as having ‘met’ or ‘exceeded expectations’). With regard to experience against expectations, students rated their experience of supervisory support and guidance as highest of the items included in the study (79.0% agreed it had met or exceeded expectations: Figure 2). In decreasing order of experience against satisfaction, they rated opportunities to develop a range of research skills (82.9%) and transferable skills (82.4%), access to appropriate facilities (78.2%), provision of guidance on institutional standards and expectations (75.8%) and research environment (75.4%). 3.3 Confidence about completing on schedule Two-thirds (67.0%; 65.2% in 2007) of the research students expected to complete their research degree programme more or less on schedule (Table 3). Table 3. Confidence about completing on schedule Item Mean SD % disagree % neutral % agree 15. I am confident that I will complete my research degree programme more or less within the planned timescale 3.78 [3.74] 1.12 [1.16] 13.8 [15.2] 19.2 [19.6] 67.0 [65.2] In general the subject differences regarding confidence to complete on schedule are small, but non-science students and medicine and dentistry students were on average slightly more confident about completing on schedule than science students. Multiple regression analysis (Appendix 3) shows that supervision and skills development are moderately important factors affecting confidence to complete on schedule (however, in total all scales account for only 19% of variance of this item, which means that there are more important factors not measured for in this survey). There are slight variations between institutions in student confidence about completing on schedule (Figure 3), but it should be noted that this was measured on a five-point scale, so direct comparisons with Figure 1 (based on a seven-point scale) are not possible. The overall mean score for this item is 3.769 (standard deviation = 0.23), and mean scores for individual institutions range from 3.12 to 4.13 (except for the low outlier of 2.5, which represents an institution with only five responses on this question). The Higher Education Academy – PRES 2008 13
Page 1 and 2: Postgraduate Research Experience Su
Page 3 and 4: Contents Executive summary ........
Page 5 and 6: Overall experience More than four o
Page 7 and 8: 1. PRES: approach and format 1.1 In
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Page 11 and 12: 2. The PRES 2008 survey The survey
Page 13: 3. Overview of PRES 2008 results 3.
Page 17 and 18: 4. Analysis of scale scores 4.1 Int
Page 19 and 20: 4.3 Skills development Students rat
Page 21 and 22: infrastructure scale (standard devi
Page 23 and 24: Table 8. Intellectual climate items
Page 25 and 26: 10; results for PRES 2008 and PRES
Page 27 and 28: Table 12. QAA Code of practice item
Page 29 and 30: Table 13. Professional development
Page 31 and 32: 6. Follow-up 6.1 Sharing effective
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Page 37 and 38: 14. Please rate the following broad
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Page 43 and 44: Table A2.7 Profile of respondents b
Page 45 and 46: Table A2.12 Profile of respondents
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Page 49 and 50: Table A3.4 Coefficients for analysi
Page 51 and 52: Appendix 4. Results of analysis of
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Page 55 and 56: Figure A4.3 Variations in satisfact
Page 57 and 58: Table A4.4 Intellectual climate ite
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