Listening to students
Find out more about how we work in partnership with students to provide the best possible experience at university.
Partnership working is important to us. We work with the Students' Union and the University’s elected sabbatical officers to provide a high-quality experience for students and improve it wherever possible.
We use student feedback to help shape their university experience through a variety of means:
Student Champions
We actively involve students across the university through our Student Champion scheme. Student Champions are students who work collaboratively with staff to co-create and develop projects to improve the student experience.
Hear from our champions
Watch this video of our Student Champions
Student representatives
Our student representatives gather student feedback and report back to staff so that improvements can be made.
The role of the representatives is to attend regular Student Staff Panels with school staff, attend College Forums with University Deans and then report on the key issues raised that may affect the student experience.
Gathering student feedback
Cardiff Pulse
Launched in March 2021, Cardiff Pulse allows us to gather student feedback quickly. We ask students six questions on a variety of topics related to their university experience at key points during the academic year.
In October 2021, 4000 students completed Cardiff Pulse and answered a range of questions on communications and the support they received at the start of term. We analysed the feedback and have shared actions taken with students, which include:
- influencing the planning, timing and frequency of our internal communications
- sharing specific and tailored information regularly about concerns raised in their feedback
- working closely with our Student Champions through regular ‘insight’ workshops
- creating more support resources to help with online learning and assessments
- sharing the findings with schools to help them understand how our students are feeling and how they can best support them.
National Student Survey
The University takes part in the annual National Student Survey (NSS) for final year students along with all Higher Education Providers across the UK.
The feedback provides us with a clear picture of what the learning experience was like for someone completing their course in any given year, so we can see how the student experience is developing.
Postgraduate surveys
The University participates annually in the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES), administered by AdvanceHE, and invite our Postgraduate Taught students to provide feedback on an array of themes regarding their student experience.
We also participate in the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES), administered by AdvanceHE, to gather feedback from our Postgraduate Research students about their experience. PRES runs every other year at Cardiff.
