I am very happy to share with you all, the Student Experience Group’s first article: Student Experience Success – Bangor University, School of Law. This article will be the first of many looking at Student Experience Success within the education sector and I hope you find these articles interesting and helpful. There is a comment box at the bottom of the article, therefore if you do have any thoughts or questions please feel free to share.
One of the key elements I look for when pinpointing a student experience success story, is a rapid increase in NSS scores from one year to the next. Bangor University’s, School of Law is a fantastic example of this, with 21 of their NSS question results increasing from 2012 to 2013 and 6 increasing by more than 15% as shown in the table below.
Having been in contact with Yvonne McDermott – Bangor University’s, School of Law’s Director of Teaching and Learning and Deputy Director of the Bangor Centre for International Law, it is apparent that their student satisfaction success is as a result of several initiatives focussed on improving the student’s experience whilst studying within the school.
Assignment Feedback
One of the School of Law’s key initiatives for 2012/13 was the introduction of a new essay cover sheet, which enables staff to give more detailed feedback to students. As well as this new and improved cover sheet, the School of Law has been able to ensure that 98% of all feedback was returned to the students within 4 weeks, targeting 100% for this (13/14) academic year.
Ensuring the students receive more detailed feedback and also receive this feedback within the expected time frame, has clearly been seen as a significant improvement by the students with Q06 and Q07 satisfaction results increasing by 18% and 19% respectively.
Office Hours
Another recent improvement has been the doubling of staff office hours, to 4 hours minimum per week. Not being able to meet with a staff member can often be very stressful for a student. Increasing staff availability and communicating staff office hours effectively, helps to give the students the assurance that if they do need help or guidance, they know where and when they can contact staff and that staff do have the time to help.
This change seems to have been met very positively by the students and is likely to be a key reason for the 19% rise in satisfaction for Q11 from 74% in 2012 to 93% in 2013.
Increased student opportunities and staff engagement
Q19 is a difficult topic to improve upon, student confidence often requires more than a change in procedure or policy. Bangor University, School of Law’s increased engagement with their students combined with initiatives focussed on providing opportunities and information support for their students seems to however have had the desired positive effect.
Some of these initiatives include a School of Law, Employability Committee focussed on providing their students with the best employment opportunities with firms such as Hill Dickinson and Hugh James offering Bangor University students placements. The web page for work placements provides student case studies so the students can relate, helping to build confidence and trust in the initiative.
Increased staff interaction and engagement outside of the typical teaching week, has been another aspect the School has instilled. Staff train and act as judges for student moot court competitions, as well as taking students on trips to destinations such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Strasbourg and Brussels amongst others. Creating these extra opportunities and ensuring staff are engaging with students throughout their University life, is surely an aspect that has helped the students to feel confident in their environment.
Bursary Scheme
One other aspect that is likely to been a significant factor in improving the overall satisfaction, is the School of Law’s bursary scheme. This scheme provides students with the opportunity to apply for financial aid to help cover the costs associated with work experience. The scheme measures the anticipated expenses, student’s financial situation and anticipated value of work experience in order to ensure that the students most in need, are awarded funding. This helps to ensure that work experience opportunities are a possibility for all students and surely a significant factor in helping to improve the overall student experience.
Student Experience Success
Student engagement and improving upon the support offered to students, are key themes throughout all of the School of Law’s initiatives. This underlines how successful initiatives can be, as long as they are focussed towards the students needs.
Each initiative has had a positive and measurable impact on the student experience resulting in much improved NSS scores, indicating that the students have recognised and appreciated the School of Law’s efforts.
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I will be continuing to post further Student Experience Success articles, each looking at a different Institution/School/Department’s initiatives and ideas that have helped them to improve their student experience. These are intended to be helpful and interesting articles that provoke further conversation on the initiatives raised, so please feel free to open up further discussion using the comments field at the bottom of each article
Finally, I would like to thank Bangor University, School of Law for sharing their initiatives with The Student Experience Group.
Ben Moreland
ben.moreland@
