Student satisfaction surveys as a quality enhancement tool: how many surveys and questions do we need?
Abstract
There is an increase in number of overlapping student satisfaction surveys in the higher education sector. Here we present results from a national and an institutional survey. The national survey for higher education in Norway started in 2013 and has been conducted for 3 years. The institutional level, represented by Hedmark University of Applied Sciences in SE Norway, has had its own student satisfaction survey for 10 years. We show that the results from the surveys are similar, stable over time and that a further increase in number of questions seldom improve our understanding of student satisfaction.
Furthermore, we show that student satisfaction is associated to academic performance. We suggest that a tighter collaboration between the national quality assurance agency and HE institutions may allow us to reduce the number of surveys and questions we ask students.
This paper was presented at EQAF and reflects the views of the named authors only.
