[Academic] NSS results

[Paul McKenna]

Colleagues,

Following on from my email earlier this week with the NSS results and a 
review meeting at Faculty level this morning, this email contains a 
summary of actions for all academic staff. I can also confirm that the 
extraordinary meeting of the DC to discuss these will be held on Monday 
3rd September, from 12.00 to 1.00pm, in JA5.06.

Firstly, thank you for your much hard and valued work relating to our 
Department’s performance in the NSS. This is recognised and appreciated, 
and areas where we have done well or improved have been noted. However, 
some of our scores this year highlight that we need to put in additional 
effort to achieve improvement in several areas, and we are developing an 
action plan to help achieve this. The plan will include:
•    Consulting with last year’s final year students (many of whom are 
now PhD students in the Department) and discussing their feedback with 
this year’s students to identify ongoing issues that need to be 
addressed. This is specifically aimed at addressing our performance in 
Q5 and Q6 in the Learning Opportunities category of questions.
•    Providing detailed project feedback, using a pro-forma to ensure 
consistency in approach, and making marking schemes for continuous 
assessment available to students at the time of issuing task. These 
actions will help to address dips in response to Q8 and Q9 in the 
Assessment and Feedback category of questions.
•    Setting elements of continuous assessment as group work, 
particularly in Final Year classes, to address Q22 under the Learning 
Community category.

The overall NSS results for the Faculty and University have generated 
much concern at senior levels and as a result, in addition to the 
department-specific action plan, all departments are asked to:
•    Introduce individual interviews for every final year student, 
preceded by the students completing a short questionnaire to inform the 
discussion. The purpose is to strengthen communication with the 
students, manage their expectations, allow guidance on their aspirations 
and facilitate diffusion of tension on specific issues.
•    Ask each individual member of academic and teaching staff to 
include a work objective relating to NSS improvement in their planning 
for the year ahead.  Staff are asked to propose a NSS improvement 
objective, along with the measurement of success for that objective, and 
to email that to their ADR reviewer for approval. The ADR Reviewers 
should confirm to their HoD by no later than 14th September that an NSS 
improvement related objective has been set for each member of academic 
and teaching staff for whom they have responsibility as a Reviewer.

The Faculty also plans to work with departments on new social and 
staff/student events to strengthen our learning communities and to 
enhance the role of the Faculty Learning Enhancement Committee (FLEC) in 
improving areas highlighted by NSS.

Nigel and Gabrielle will provide more details on the action plan for the 
Department in due course. This will include plans for the student 
interviews and guidance around setting NSS improvement related ADR 
objectives and measurements.  We will also send a proforma to the 
relevant ADR reviewers to compile and record these, for submission ahead 
of the 14th September University deadline.

We will discuss all of this at the DC on 3rd September. The acting-Dean 
will also attend the meeting.

Thank you for your continued work in this important area.

Regards,
Paul


On 21/08/2018 12:59, Paul McKenna wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Please see the attached file with a summary of our NSS results.
>
> We have a good number of highest quartile scores and only three in the 
> lowest quartile. Whilst our overall student satisfaction has stayed 
> approximately constant, there are several areas in which we have 
> dropped in performance since last year. We have maintained our 
> position within the Faculty and University rankings, but dropped with 
> respect to other Physics departments (from 2nd to 4th in Scotland and 
> from 8th to 14th in the UK). There are a couple of negative comments 
> made on isolated issues (which we will address), but also many 
> positive comments, and in particular relating to the enthusiasm and 
> support of staff in the Department.
>
> Nigel and I have an NSS review meeting with the Faculty this Friday to 
> discuss ways to improve our performance and we will be in touch again 
> after that to communicate a plan of action going forward.
>
> We also intend to hold an extraordinary meeting of the Departmental 
> Committee to discuss the plans, ahead of the start of the semester. 
> This is provisionally scheduled for Monday 3rd September, from 12.00 
> to 1.00pm. Please hold this date and time for now, and this will be 
> confirmed in due course. Thanks.
>
> Regards,
>
> Paul
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> Prof. Paul McKenna
> Head of Department
> Department of Physics, SUPA,
> University of Strathclyde,
> Glasgow G4 0NG
> U.K.
>
> Tel: 0141-548-3132 (secretary) / 5712 (direct)
> Email: paul.mckenna at strath.ac.uk
> ----------------------------------------------
>


-- 
----------------------------------------------
Prof. Paul McKenna
Head of Department
Department of Physics, SUPA,
University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow G4 0NG
U.K.

Tel: 0141-548-3132 (secretary) / 5712 (direct)
Email: paul.mckenna at strath.ac.uk
----------------------------------------------