National Student Survey 2018: Results for Business & Management studies

The results for the 2018 National Student Survey were released to the general public on 27 July 2018. The survey consists of 27 questions where students are asked to rate their institution on a number of themes including teaching, learning opportunities, assessment and feedback, academic support and learning resources. Over 320,000 students completed the 2018 survey.

For this year’s NSS a total of 154 institutions provided returns for the subject area of Business & Management, an increase from 151 last year. The Chartered ABS has incorporated the NSS results for Business & Management into a single spreadsheet which can be filtered by institution and question. There is also a table which compares the results for Business & Management with the average score across all subject areas. Below are the key findings from the 2017/18 NSS for full-time first degree students on Business & Management courses.

Overall satisfaction is high amongst Business & Management students

  • 81% of Business & Management students agree that they are satisfied with the quality of their course, which is close to the average level of satisfaction across all subject areas (83%)

The vast majority of Business & Management students are satisfied with the teaching they receive but more could be done to make it intellectually stimulating and engaging

  • For the theme of ‘The teaching on the course’, the overall score of 80% for Business & Management is 5% below the average for all subjects. Business & Management students’ express lower levels of agreement with the statements that staff have made the subject interesting and that the course is intellectually stimulating.
  • Students on Business & Management courses are also less likely than students in other subject areas to agree that their course has challenged them to achieve their best work. However, teachers in business schools are seen as being good at explaining things, with 87% of students agreeing with this statement.
  • Within the theme of ‘Learning opportunities’ a high proportion of Business & Management students (84%) felt that their course had provided opportunities to bring together information and ideas from different topics. Whilst 80% of Business & Management students believe that their course has provided opportunities to explore ideas or concepts in depth, this is behind the average of 84% for all subject areas.

Students are satisfied with the learning resources provided in Business & Management courses and with the availability of staff

  • Business & Management scores highly on questions related to ‘Learning resources’ with an average score of 84% for this theme and high levels of satisfaction in relation to library resources and course-specific resources. The proportion of Business & Management students agreeing that they are able to access course-specific resources has improved from 83% in 2016/17 to 85% in the current year.
  • Levels of satisfaction are also good for the area of ‘Learning community’, with Business & Management scoring particularly well for giving opportunities for students to collaborate with others. In the area of academic support, 85% of students felt that they had been able to contact business school staff when they needed to.
  • For assessment and feedback the performance of Business & Management is similar to that of other subjects but the results highlight specific areas to address

For the ‘Assessment and feedback’ theme the overall levels of satisfaction amongst Business & Management students are lower relative to other themes but this is also observed for other subject areas.

  • 71% of business school students agreed that the feedback on their work had been timely, which is in line with the average across all subjects and a 2% improvement on last year.
  • For the question on ‘receiving helpful comments on my work’, Business & Management performed markedly worse than the average for all subjects, with only 69% of students expressing agreement, compared to 74% for all subjects.
  • Scores are also lower in the area of ‘Student Voice’ but this is again consistent with the scores received for these questions across all subjects. For example, only 60% of students in business schools agreed that it was clear how students’ feedback on the course had been acted on, almost identical with the average of 61% for all subjects.
  • Although the majority of Business & Management students agreed that they had received the right opportunities to provide feedback on their course (82%) and that staff valued their opinions about the course (74%), the results for these two questions are marginally lower than the average for all subjects.
Download spreadsheet here