Student Experience Research Advisory (SERA)

This publication has been released to demonstrate the increasing need for student experience research. By seeing how student experience research works in other institutions, SERA can use this to develop our own research methods that would positively impact students. It also showcases the variety of ways on how student experience research can be approached, which provides interesting comparisons.

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Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) is an organization that assists universities mainly in the United States to carry out student experience research. Among its many participating universities is the University of California – Berkeley. Berkeley has done various research studies involving its students using census surveys, which allows for the elimination of sampling errors. The surveys are also customized for each campus.

The National Union of Students (NUS) in the UK is a confederation of 600 students’ unions and accounts for 95% of all higher education unions in the UK. The NUS represents over seven million students and sets one of its key objects as shaping the student learning experience. The NUS does a student experience report annually, which gives an overview of all aspects of university life in the UK. Both qualitative and quantitative methodology is used.

At Harvard University, the implementation of the Harvard Assessment Seminars Project (HASP) was designed to focus on student opinions regarding academics and classroom teaching. The established goal is to translate the findings into policies and action. HASP holds monthly meetings with administrators, deans, professors, and undergraduate students. Anyone can suggest a project, and if others wanted to work on it, the idea moved forward.

The University of Western Sydney (UWS) conducted its research relating to student experience through a student satisfaction survey, run from 2005 to 2007. The main purpose of this research was to identify trends in student experience and areas of improvement, implement possible solutions, as well as monitor these solutions based on student feedback. The topics covered in the student satisfaction survey were academic support, outcome of study, library services, student services, and general student facilities.

The Student Experience of E-Learning Laboratory (SEEL) at the University of Greenwich focuses strictly on research relating to student experience with e-learning technology. The research ranges from questionnaires, focus groups, quantitative data analyses, large scale literature reviews, or a mix of more than one method. SEEL uses five main types of evaluation procedures including formative evaluation, summative evaluation, illuminative evaluation, integrative evaluation, as well as quality assurance and enhancement.