Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) 2011 - Higher ...

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PRES 2011 Results – September 2011 coefficient: the higher the beta value, the more important the scale. The analysis shows that – as in previous years of PRES – the Supervision scale had the strongest impact on how research students rated their overall experience, followed by the Intellectual Climate scale, and the Professional Development and Career scale. The only other two statistically significant factors were the Thesis Examination and Skills Development scales. These results are consistent with similar analysis carried out for PRES 2007 and 2008, which also showed that Supervision and Intellectual Climate were the strongest predictors of overall experience 11 . 2.2 Responses to PRES by item The figures below present responses to the individual items, both those included in the scales described above and other items that do not comprise scales (such as the items relating to teaching opportunities (Q10-Q12), importance of various factors (Q9), and experience against expectations (Q15)). Full tables containing percentage responses to each item and numbers of respondents are contained in Appendix A. The PRES questionnaire uses a five-point scale for most items (with 1 being ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 being ‘strongly agree’), which has been converted for this report into a three-point scale comprising ‘disagree’ (responses 1 and 2), ‘neutral’ (response 3) and ‘agree’ (responses 4 and 5). The locution ‘% agree’ has been used in the charts and tables below to indicate the aggregation of responses 4 and 5 on the fivepoint scale. 2.2.1 Supervision (Q1) The supervision items comprise the highest scoring scale in PRES: in particular, 87.5% of respondents said that their supervisor had the skills and subject knowledge to adequately support their research (Q1a). This is especially encouraging given that, as described above, the Supervision scale is the strongest predictor of overall experience. Respondents were less positive in response to Q1d regarding guidance given for the literature search (although it could be argued that this is not necessarily overly problematic given the nature of doctoral study); nevertheless, this item showed the largest change from 2009 of all the items in the scale, the % agree increasing by 5.6%. The ranking of items within this scale by % agree is consistent over all years of the survey. 11 Preliminary multi-level modelling also indicates that the institutional effect on overall experience (Q15g) is remarkably small: only 0.9% of the variance for that item. In comparison, when experience of supervision is added to the model 27% of the total variance is accounted for. Further analysis would be required to confirm the suggestion that institution has only a minimal effect on a PGR’s experience of their research programme, but this would be consistent with findings from the National Student Survey (see Surridge 2009). 19
PRES 2011 Results – September 2011 Figure 2.2: Supervision items, % agree, Q1 2.2.2 Skills Development (Q2) Skills Development is also a high scoring scale, with respondents being particularly positive that their experience so far has improved their ability to learn independently (Q2d) and their analytical skills (Q2b), these items ranking first and second highest respectively by % agree, as was the case in all previous years. Not only has Q2d been the highest ranked item for every year, it also has the most consistent result: the average change in score between years of the survey for that item is only 1.43%. The only important change in ranking is for Q2e, which was fifth (second to last) in % agree (by some distance) in 2007 and 2008, but is ranked third in 2011. This change is largely due to an abrupt 9.2% change between 2008 and 2009. The change for that item between 2009 and 2011 was 5.3%. The largest change in % agree between 2009 and 2011 was for Q2f, the lowest scoring item, which nevertheless increased by 6.7%. There is more clustering in the 2011 results for the different items in Q2 than in previous years, evident in the fact that the gap between the highest and lowest scoring item (Q2d and Q2f respectively) has narrowed markedly over the years of the survey, decreasing from 22.2% in 2007 to 12.8% in 2011. Figure 2.3: Skills Development items, % agree, Q2 20
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