Prospects and pitfalls of extending the UK National Student Survey to postgraduate students: an international review

Most large-scale student surveys including the UK‘s National Student Survey (NSS) only survey undergraduate students. The 2011 Higher Education White Paper 'Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System‘ invited The Higher Education Public Information Steering Group (HEPISG) to consider the possibility of extending the NSS (or a version of it) to taught postgraduate students (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2011: 29-30). Whilst a HEFCE-funded feasibility study recommended 'that a postgraduate taught pilot survey should not be commissioned at the current time‘ (NatCen 2013: 39), the need for the sector to better understand the needs, opinions, expectations and decision-making processes of postgraduate and potential postgraduate students remains. With reference to practice in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and other countries, this report offers an overview of the literature of surveying students in general, with particular emphasis on the implications of surveying postgraduate students.