Thank you to students who participated in the 2016 Postgraduate Taught Student Experience Survey (PTES) which took place earlier this year.

In March, Nottingham taught postgraduate students were invited to take part in the national Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) organised by the Higher Education Academy.

833 University of Nottingham postgraduate students (26%) provided feedback about their experience in key areas of teaching and learning, engagement, assessment and feedback and course organisation and management and resources and services.  They also rated how their skills had developed during the course as well as their motivations for taking their programme.

They were among 82,700 students from 107 institutions who took part in the survey this year.

Initial analysis of the University of Nottingham responses highlights that:

• 90% of Nottingham respondents agreed that staff are good at explaining things and are enthusiastic about what they teach.
• 87% of respondents agreed they are encouraged to ask questions or make contributions in taught sessions
• 86% agreed that their supervisor has the skills and subject knowledge to adequately support my dissertation / major project
• 82% agreed that the course had been worth the investment of time
• The most popular reason or taking the postgraduate programme were to improve employment prospects or progress in an existing career.

Areas of lower satisfaction included the flexibility of courses to fit around students’ other commitments and the manageability of workload. These are areas that the University will be working to improve for students in future years and we will also be conducting more detailed analysis and sharing this with Schools and the Students Union.