You might find in your email inboxes (Flinders addresses) an invitation to participate in the Student Experiences Survey.

This is not an initiative by Flinders, but Flinders participates because it gives valuable information about the experiences of students in our university.

“The Student Experience Survey (SES) provides current higher education students with the opportunity to talk about their experience of the institution they are enrolled in. The results of this research are used to help Flinders University and the government gain insight into students’ experiences, and to monitor and improve teaching and learning in Australia.”

In more straight out terms, you get to anonymously report on whether you like Flinders or not.

 

You can find out most of what you need to know here – https://www.srcentre.com.au/our-research/student-experience-survey

You can also initiate the survey (if you can’t find in inbox) here – https://www.qilt.edu.au/surveys/student-experience-survey

Flinders has a little blurb about it on their website as well – https://www.flinders.edu.au/planning/surveys/student-experience-survey-now-open.cfm

 

There is a $1000 prize available to a lucky participant. The earlier you complete the survey, the greater the chances you have of winning.

If you want to get a feel for the content of the survey, you can look at the report from 2018 – it is pretty dense, so I don’t imagine you’ll get through the full report.

In short though, the survey addresses multiple aspects of the student experience:

• Teaching quality – what you think of the teaching here at Flinders
• Learner engagement – how engaged you are with the various activities of study (online discussions, group work, interaction with other students, connection to institution)
• Skills development – the extent to which you think you are developing the skills required for learning but also future employability in your chosen field
• Student support – whether there are services (like Health, Counselling and Disability, Careers, learning advisors) avaiable to help you complete your studies and whether those services are actually helpful
• Learning resources – the quality of the facilities here at Flinders

The more students at Flinders who participate, the better data we get on how students are finding their experience at Flinders. So please participate.

Also, be honest in your answers. Whilst we’d love to find out that your experience here at Flinders is meeting your needs, it is ultimately more helpful if we get a more nuanced view of what you are finding good, and what you are not finding so good.