Who is eligible to take part in the NSS?
1. Which institutions are eligible to take part?
- All HEIs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
- Scottish HEIs that agreed with HEFCE and informed Ipsos to take part
- The University of Buckingham (independent institution)
- Further Education Colleges with HE in FE provision
2. Which students meet the eligibility criteria?
Students are included in the survey population if they are expected to complete between 1st February and 31 January inclusive.
- Final year students and equivalent
- students expected to be in their final year
- students on flexible programmes where the final year cannot be predicted, after they are expected to have undertaken more than one fte and not before their third of study
- Part-time and full-time students
- all full-time students registered at participating institutions
- all part-time students registered at participating institutions
- All students not on closed courses
- Student with the following funding arrangements
- Students on Initial Teacher Training courses funded by the TDA for Schools
- Students studying NHS- funded subjects
- All students studying on directly funded, prescribed HE courses at FE colleges
3. Which students are NOT eligible to complete the survey?
- students on programmes that do not lead to undergraduate qualifications or credits
- students on a course lasting one year or one full-time equivalent (fte) or less (for UoB this includes all intercalating students)
- students who were eligible in the previous years' survey (whether they responded or not) and who remain at the same institution
- students expected to have completed one fte or less since they were last surveyed by the end of the academic year
Institutions are able to exclude students with serious health difficulties from being contacted by the survey and all students are able to opt out at any time.
4. What happens with students who repeat a year of study?
Where a student is repeating their penultimate year or has changed their original course arrangements, they will be surveyed in the year that they were expected to complete their course and not when they eventually progress to their final year.
