Final year students at the University of Lincoln are being encouraged to complete the National Student Survey (NSS) – after the survey launched this morning.
The 27-question study – run by the research organisation Ipsos MORI – asks students to ‘provide honest feedback on what it has been like to study on their course at their institution’.
The results are then made available on Unistats – a website which allows prospective students to compare higher education courses.
A University of Lincoln spokesperson said: “The National Student Survey launches at Lincoln on 5th February and we are encouraging all eligible final year students to take part.
“This year, to help students reflect on their academic career with is, we are offering a free coffee and cake to all students who complete the NSS at the University Library by 23rd February.”
Students who fill out the survey at the University Library will also be offered a free coffee and cake upon completion.
This year’s call for respondents comes after students passed a motion to boycott the NSS at an emergency All Students Members meeting in March last year.
Proposed by Postgraduate Officer Bradley Allsop and amended by then-postgraduate student Michael Daniell, it called for Lincoln Students’ Union to ‘refuse to aid in the promotion of NSS and to ensure our policy is one of official opposition to NSS whilst it is still linked to tuition fees’.
At the time, the student survey attracted criticism over its ties to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) – a grading system which would have allowed universities that meet a ‘baseline quality standard’ to raise fees in line with inflation until 2020.
Last year, the University of Lincoln received a ‘gold’ rating in the TEF, which is the highest level awarded.
In April, Lincoln SU formally announced that they would boycott the survey, until they chose to nullify the motion following changes by the government.
After the Higher Education and Research Bill was passed in the same month, the link between the TEF and tuition fees has been postponed until 2020 and once a review has taken place.
The National Student Survey can be completed on the official website or at NSS Central on the ground floor of the University Library from February 5 to February 23, between 8am and 5pm.