Should we survey students during a pandemic?

Calls to abandon the 2020 National Student Survey in the UK by student and teaching groups suggest that an 'atypical' student experience is not worth measuring.

Higher education providers have been forced to make radical changes to course delivery and the teaching and learning experience in an extraordinarily short period of time on an unprecedented scale. The COVID-19 pandemic has irrevocably changed the higher education landscape locally, nationally and internationally. It is impossible to predict how this unfolding health crisis will affect the higher education sector, students, graduates and employers in the short, medium or longer term.

The 2020 Quality Indicators for Teaching and Learning (QILT) collection is scheduled to commence in August, starting with the Student Experience Survey (SES) of all commencing and completing undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students. For the first time, QILT was going to have an explicit focus on the experience of international students.

The next cycle of QILT represents a baseline for what is potentially the ‘new normal’. The current situation may not stabilise for months or even years and there is definitely no return to a previous way of delivering higher education.

In this context, failing to initiate a QILT cycle:

• Denies students and graduates who are currently engaged in their studies at this challenging time a voice to provide feedback about their experiences and outcomes.

• Ensures providers who have excelled in the delivery of high quality teaching and learning will go unrecognised for their efforts.

More concerningly, not proceeding with QILT in 2020 could send the message that higher education quality is only important under certain circumstances and there are times when standards do not need to be observed as rigorously.  I believe we need to know as much as we can about the student experience during these difficult times so we can fully understand the lessons we are learning now and best serve the students of the future.