Sayed Alkadiri, Vice President Business and Law

This year’s scores for satisfaction show a pause in Middlesex University’s trend of increasing each year. We are currently looking at the information in greater depth in order to establish how we can work with the University to improve for students. However, below are some of the Students’ Unions key reflections on this year’s scores and areas we want to work with the university to improve.

MDXSU has been pleased that both ours and the university’s scores have risen by 6 points over the past 4 years. However, with this being the first generation of students paying three times the amount in fees than before, it is no surprise that expectations are higher. We will be working alongside the university over the coming year to regain our momentum and meet student expectations.

Our officers have begun analysing the initial set of results and are going to be publishing an action plan which we believe will address any areas of concern. We will also be conducting our own research with students to try to establish the story behind the numbers.

Middlesex has had reduced scores in every category except Learning Resources. While we want to extend our commendation to the Library Support Services department for bucking the trend, the university needs to look seriously at the other issues. The last few years have seen gradual increase in all these areas and it is of concern to us that this trend is changing. From our perspective there are three specific areas to be addressed as well as the more general questions that will be asked following the NSS scores.

Teaching

Overall, the teaching category score has dropped by 2 points, as well as most answers to teaching related questions dropping by two points also. A good teaching experience is pivotal to the student experience, and while the drops in other categories are concerning, the university should take action to identify problems with teaching and remedy them as quickly as possible. Our Teaching Awards over the past two years have showcased the amazing teaching that happens at Middlesex, and we would like to see the good practice that has been identified become more widespread, and students universally benefitting from good teaching.

Black Attainment Gap

Awareness of the Black Attainment Gap is increasing across the sector, and should be taken particularly seriously at institutions with large populations of black students such as Middlesex. Black students at Middlesex are less satisfied across almost all measures within the three categories of Teaching, Assessment and Academic Support. Particularly stark examples are that they are 7% less satisfied with ‘Assessment and marking arrangements have been fair’, and 8% less satisfied that they have been able to contact staff when they need to. These scores further vindicate our arguments for Anonymous marking. Institution wide the highest drop across teaching and assessment was in relation to the question on fairness in assessment and marking arrangements, and the fact that this is more pronounced within non-white students shows the importance of students feeling that the marking system at Middlesex is fair.

Placements

Satisfaction in placements has taken a serious drop this year. Students saying they had enough preparatory information is down 8%, appropriate supervision is down 6% and students who believe they had the opportunity to meet their learning outcomes is down 5%. We intend to do research this year into the placement experience that students have, and we hope to work with the university to try and identify the reasons for this problem and look into how to solve them. We urge the university to work with us to enable us to gain insight into what can be done to improve students’ placement experience.

For any more information or comment please contact MDXSU Vice President, Sayed Alkadiri, on s.alkadiri@mdx.ac.uk