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This year has been one of significant disruption in the higher education sector in particular for many students .
Drop in student satisfaction levels but independent providers make their mark .
By Wade Zaglas
It was expected that the 2020 Student Experience Survey ( SES ) would make for interesting reading this year , with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting virtually every part of our globalised world .
DOMESTIC STUDENTS In Australia , for instance , there was a nine percentage point decline from 78 per cent in 2019 to 69 per cent in 2020 for student ratings of the overall quality of their entire educational experience .
On a subject-specific level , science and mathematics fared worse , both seeing a 13 per cent drop in their overall quality education experience – the biggest decline of any subject area . Teacher education , on the other hand , experienced the smallest decline of just four percentage points in their overall education experience .
However , drops in undergraduate levels of overall quality education experience paled in comparison to the Learner Engagement domain , which plunged 16 percentage points from 60 per cent in 2019 to 44 per cent in 2020 .
Postgraduate coursework students also rated their overall educational experience as 69 per cent , the same score recorded by the undergraduate students . However , the postgraduate cohort also registered a smaller drop in the Learner Engagement domain of six percentage points , compared to the undergraduates ’ drop of 16 percentage points .
Tough times
“ Most likely because this group tends to be older and more likely to already be studying online or intending to ,” the report ’ s authors said about this significant difference .
A concerning finding of the 2020 SES is the percentage of students who are contemplating dropping out of their courses , “ with 50 per cent of those respondents citing health or stress as the reason ”.
INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS International students , perhaps , experienced an even more problematic year in 2020 , with COVID-induced forces wreaking havoc with many of their “ living arrangements , financial circumstances and paid employment situations ”.
No learning domain improved for international students – neither skills development , learner engagement , teaching quality , student support , learning resources nor quality of entire educational experience improved , even slightly , since 2019 .
Only scores for student support remained the same , which is arguably an achievement as many students – particularly international ones – sought at times desperate help during the apex of the pandemic .
An illuminating finding from the 2020 SES survey was that international students ’ financial arrangements grew by 19 per cent in one year , as did their living arrangements ( 11 per cent ) and their paid work commitments ( 9 per cent ) which they arguably used to offset other costs that can detract from study time .
Lisa Bolton , director , QILT research and strategy , did not find 2020 ’ s findings surprising .
“ This year has been one of significant disruption in the higher education sector in particular for many students , with the rapid move to fully online learning ,” she said .
“ It would appear that this move has impacted various institutions more than others , depending on their previous experience in delivering courses online , their location and study area profile .”
The 2020 Student Experience Survey ( SES ) forms part of the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching ( QILT ) survey suite and is conducted by the Social Research Centre for the Australian Government Department of Education , Skills and Employment on an annual basis .
The 2020 SES primarily relied upon a national online survey covering 133 higher education institutions , 41 universities , and 92 non-university higher education institutions ( NUHEIs ). Nearly 300,000 valid course level responses were collected across all study levels . This represented a response rate of 44.1 per cent . Responses were collected between August and October 2020 .
INDEPENDENT HIGHER EDUCATION SECTOR
Although public universities endured a mediocre year in terms of the 2020 SES , the independent higher education sector received some fantastic results , with the top 25 institutions for student support all private providers . In teaching quality , too , students ranked 24 independent institutions as being in the top 25 nationally .
“ The surge in student quality rankings of Learning Resources in the independent sector demonstrates the determination of independent institutions to continue quality teaching and learning through the challenges of 2020 ,” Independent Higher Education Australia CEO Simon Finn said .
“ With students unable to attend campus and make use of all of the ancillary benefits of campus life , their core focus remains on their continuing ability to learn and succeed in their studies . The 2020 QILT results show that independent providers deliver the essential learning resources to ensure a quality student experience ,” he said . ■
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