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A 10-year case study on the changing determinants of university student satisfaction in the UK.

ABSTRACT: Higher Education (HE), once the prerogative of a tiny elite, is now accessible to larger numbers of people around the world than ever before yet despite the fact that an understanding of student satisfaction has never been more important for today's universities, the concept remains poorly understood. Here we use published data from the UK's National Student Survey (NSS), representing data from 2.3 million full-time students collected from 2007 to 2016, as a case study of the benefits and limitations of measuring student satisfaction that might have applicability for other countries, particularly those that, like the UK, have experienced significant growth in student numbers. The analyses showed that the factor structure of the NSS remained generally stable and that the ability of the NSS to discriminate between different subjects at different universities actually improved over the ten-year sample period. The best predictors of overall satisfaction were 'Teaching Quality' and 'Organisation & Management', with 'Assessment & Feedback' having relatively weak predictive ability, despite the sector's tangible efforts to improve on this metric. The tripling of student fees in 2012 for English students (but not the rest of the UK) was used as a 'natural experiment' to investigate the sensitivity of student satisfaction ratings to the real economic costs of HE. The tuition fee increase had no identifiable negative effect, with student satisfaction steadily improving throughout the decade. Although the NSS was never designed to measure perceived value-for-money, its insensitivity to major changes in the economic costs of HE to the individual suggest that the conventional concept of student satisfaction is incomplete. As such we propose that the concept of student satisfaction: (i) needs to be widened to take into account the broader economic benefits to the individual student by including measures of perceived value-for-money and (ii) should measure students' level of satisfaction in the years post-graduation, by which time they may have a greater appreciation of the value of their degree in the workplace.

SUBMITTER: Burgess A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5825039 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A 10-year case study on the changing determinants of university student satisfaction in the UK.

Burgess Adrian A Senior Carl C Moores Elisabeth E

PloS one 20180223 2

Higher Education (HE), once the prerogative of a tiny elite, is now accessible to larger numbers of people around the world than ever before yet despite the fact that an understanding of student satisfaction has never been more important for today's universities, the concept remains poorly understood. Here we use published data from the UK's National Student Survey (NSS), representing data from 2.3 million full-time students collected from 2007 to 2016, as a case study of the benefits and limita ...[more]

PMID: 29474452

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Project description:BackgroundIn October 2017, a partnership was established between the University Hospital of Toulouse and the French Chiropractic College, "Institut Franco-Européen de Chiropraxie" (IFEC). Before 2017, chiropractors did not practice in hospitals in France. Chiropractic students and chiropractors are now integrated in an interdisciplinary medical team at University Hospital. Our study aimed to describe the characteristics of patients who received chiropractic care at the University Hospital of Toulouse, their expectations, experiences of care, and satisfaction.MethodA prospective case study was conducted. Patients referred for chiropractic care in the French University Hospital of Toulouse from January to December 2020 were eligible to participate. Participants provided the following data: demographics, previous chiropractic care treatments, pain location, intensity (NRS) and duration, disability (NDI, ODI), health-related quality of life (SF-12) and depressive symptomatology (PHQ-9). We conducted semi-structured interviews to explore their expectations, barriers and facilitators impacting their experience of care, and satisfaction.ResultsSeventeen participants were recruited and seven were interviewed. All participants had chronic pain with a median pain intensity of 05/10 (IQR 04-06) on the NRS scale. Nine of 17 participants presented with multiple pain locations. Thirteen of seventeen participants presented with low back pain and eight with neck pain. The median SF-12 health-related quality of life score was 50/100 (IQR 28.5-60.5) for physical health, and 52/100 (IQR 43-62) for mental health. The PHQ-9 median score of depressive symptomatology was 7.7/27 (IQR 2.0-12.5). Overall, participants were satisfied with their care and the collaboration between chiropractors and physicians. Participants expected a caring communication with the chiropractic team. Their experience was facilitated by their trust in their physician. Patients perceived the turnover of chiropractic students as a barrier to their satisfaction.ConclusionOur participants presented with chronic musculoskeletal pain and depressive symptoms. Our study identified facilitators and barriers for patient expectation and satisfaction with chiropractic care in a hospital setting. This study provides the first data describing the collaboration between chiropractors and physicians in France in the management of musculoskeletal disorders. These findings will inform the quality improvement of our partnership, student's training and the development of future hospital-based collaborations integrating chiropractic care in a multidisciplinary team in France.

Dataset Information

A 10-year case study on the changing determinants of university student satisfaction in the UK.

Publications

A 10-year case study on the changing determinants of university student satisfaction in the UK.

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