National Student Survey (NSS)

The NSS is a national online survey sent to final year undergraduates which gives students the opportunity to feedback about their teaching and learning experience.  All public funded Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are required to take part, and the survey has been conducted annually since 2005. The Office for Students (OfS), as the higher education regulator in England, became responsible for running the NSS in April 2018 (previously HEFCE). The survey is delivered by Ipsos who commission CACI Limited to provide the results to institutions.

Who is eligible to take part?

All full-time and part-time undergraduate students can take part during their final year of study. Students expected to complete their programme between 1 February and 31 January (the following year) will be invited that year.

The following students are not eligible:

Students on programmes that do not lead to undergraduate qualifications or credits
Students on a course lasting one year or one FTE or less
Any students who were eligible in the NSS during the previous year (whether or not they responded) and who remain at the same institution
Any students expected to have completed one FTE or less since they were last surveyed

Further details are available on the Office for Students website in their guide to the NSS (see useful links below).

What questions are asked in the survey?

There are 25 core questions covering the following themes within the student experience, each are based on a four-point scale (two positive and two negative):

Teaching on my course
Learning Opportunities
Assessment and Feedback
Academic Support
Organisation and Management
Learning Resources
Student Voice

In addition there is a question on mental health and wellbeing services, and a question on freedom of expression. Students are also given the opportunity to give positive and negative comments on their student experience as a whole. Further details are available on the NSS website (see useful link below).

When does the survey run?

The survey is usually sent to eligible students from January and closes on 30 April each year. The University agrees the specific release date with Ipsos within a given five-week window.

For 2025, the survey will run from 27 January 2025 until 30 April 2025.

What incentives are there for students to complete the survey?

Every student who is eligible for NSS 2025 is also eligible to enter a prize draw, in which they can win one of the following prizes:

1x iPad Air
6x Graduation Day Packages (Free gown hire, photography shoot with a complimentary graduation photo and two additional guest tickets).
1x £200 voucher – choice of: Uber, Deliveroo, LovetoShop
2x £100 voucher – choice of: Uber, Deliveroo, LovetoShop
4x £50 voucher – choice of: Uber, Deliveroo, LovetoShop
6x £25 voucher – choice of: Uber, Deliveroo, LovetoShop

For each response submitted The University will also make a £2 charitable donation, split equally between four charities. The 2025 charities will be communicated shortly.

How can I promote the survey?

Each year the Student Communications and Engagement team promote the NSS through the weekly My Manchester newsletter, Student News website, social media channels, and digital signage. However, staff who have regular contact with students are vital to increasing response rates. Take a look at our NSS promotional toolkit for digital assets that you can use e.g. PowerPoint slides, posters, e-mail footers etc.

Included in the toolkit is some guidance and information about how to promote the survey and what constitutes as inappropriate influence. The important thing to remember is to avoid attempting, or appearing to attempt, to influence the way students answer the questions. We are promoting the survey, not the institution, and therefore we should encourage honest feedback about a student’s experiences. Our aim through promotion must be to increase response rates, not improve our student experience metrics for league tables and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).

Can I share interim Response Rates?

Ipsos share interim response rate reports with the University on a weekly basis. Sharing this information with students and departments can boost response rates so this should be encouraged. However, as the Office for Students are designated as a produce of Official Statistics, we must comply with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics, as follows:

Only share NSS response rate information if it is necessary and has a clear rationale e.g. this is necessary to achieve higher response rates, and/or for quality assurance purposes. 
Only share NSS response rate information in a targeted way so that it reaches those directly involved in completion of the NSS.
Do not share NSS response rate information with anyone externally, and do not share this information in any location that can be accessed externally or by those not directly involved in completing the NSS e.g. an open social media channel.
When sharing NSS response rate information please ensure that you include a statement to alert the individuals of their responsibility to treat the information as confidential, and not for wider or external circulation.

If you share interim response rates, we also need to document details of how this was shared for inspection by the Office for Students in case there is a breach of the Code of Practice for Statistics.The Teaching and Learning Delivery Team keep an Excel spreadsheet to record all sharing of this information. If you include interim response rates in any communications you will need to update the Excel spreadsheet [a link for 2025 data will be added ahead of the NSS release date] with the following information:

Target audience – the group who received the information
Details of the information shared e.g. provider-level and philosophy department interim response rates
Method of distribution e.g. e-mail, announcement on virtual learning environment (VLE)
Date and time the information was shared
Justification for sharing the interim response rates e.g. to encourage participation in the NSS

What are the requirements for the results to be published?

A 50% response rate with a minimum of 10 respondents is required for the results to be published. Most University subject areas achieve the required response rate for results to be reported at level 3 of the Common Aggregation Hierarchy (CAH) coding system (if the threshold is not met for level 3 then results are included at level 2).

We are also given the results broken down into school, internal department code and programme title to enable internal analysis. Similar to the above, 10 respondents arerequired for the results to be included in the internal report.

Where can I find the results?

On the day the results are released, the raw data and free-text comments will be available for internal use on our NSS results page (University log-in required). The raw quantitative data is available publicly through the NSS data dashboard (see useful links below), but the free-text comments are for internal use only.

How are the results used?

The University uses the results to measure undergraduate student satisfaction with their teaching and learning experience, and to identify areas for improvement. Analysis of the results contributes to the University’s annual academic assurance cycle as part of our continuous monitoring processes. NSS data is measured as part of our Key Performance Indicators to hold senior University colleagues accountable and to take positive action at all levels of the University.

The Office for Students give prospective students this information through DiscoverUni (see useful links below) to help them choose a university and degree programme.

The results are also used in the construction of university league tables and the media uses the results to inform debate about higher education provision.

Useful links:

NSS website
Office for Students guide to the NSS
Office for Students NSS data dashboard
DiscoverUni

For general queries, please e-mail teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk