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StudentSurvey.ie (Irish Survey of Student Engagement), 2023 

Study number (SN): 0030-10

Citation 

ABOUT THE STUDY 

The central aim of StudentSurvey.ie (Irish Survey of Student Engagement) is to develop a valuable source of information about students’ experiences of higher education in Ireland. The results of the survey are intended primarily to add value at institutional level, and to inform national policy. A detailed online survey was offered to first year undergraduates, final year undergraduates and postgraduate students on taught programmes. Data are presented as responses to individual items and as calculated scores for nine indicators that relate to broad aspects of student engagement, such as Collaborative Learning and Higher Order Learning.  StudentSurvey.ie has formative links with the US National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE). Thus, Irish data can be evaluated in the context of other jurisdictions in addition to the national or sector contexts. Note that there was a substantial revision of questions deployed in 2016 results in the fact that 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 data may be compared directly, but do not fully compare to data from previous years. Another review was carried out in 2021, and some changes were made to the questions used in 2022.

The term ‘student engagement’ is used in educational contexts to refer to a range of related, but distinct, understandings of the interaction between students and the higher education institutions they attend. Most, if not all, interpretations of student engagement are based on the extent to which students actively avail of opportunities to involve themselves in ‘educationally beneficial’ activities and the extent to which institutions enable, facilitate and encourage such involvement. StudentSurvey.ie focuses on students’ engagement with their learning and their learning environments. It does not directly explore, for example, students’ involvement in quality assurance or in institutional decision-making. Measuring engagement can provide a means to develop a fuller understanding of the student experience above and beyond that ascertained through surveys of student satisfaction alone.

A total of 39,403 students from 21 institutions responded to the survey which was undertaken in February – March 2023.

MAIN TOPICS 

• Higher Education 
• Student Behaviour
• Student Engagement
• Student Participation
• Students (College)
• Tertiary Education

COVERAGE, UNIVERSE, METHODOLOGY 

Population 

The survey was offered as a voluntary census survey to all first year undergraduate students, final year undergraduate students and postgraduate students pursuing taught programmes in state-funded higher education institutions and some private higher education institutions.

Observation units 

• Individual
• Institutions / Organisations

Temporal coverage 

From 02/2023 to 03/2023

Each participating institution selected the most appropriate three week period for local fieldwork from the overall national fieldwork period.

Time dimension  

Repeated cross-sectional study. StudentSurvey.ie is undertaken on an annual basis. This dataset represents the eleventh iteration

Geographical coverage 

Country: Ireland

Methods of data collection 

• CASI (Computer Assisted Self Interviewing)

Sampling procedures 

All members of the target cohort (first year undergraduate, final year undergraduate, taught postgraduate higher education students) were invited to participate in the survey.

Percentage responses to question items, and calculated indicator scores, were weighted by gender, stage of study (first year, final year, postgrad taught) and mode of study (full-time or part-time/remote) at institutional level to ensure that the profile of respondents matched the profile of the student population. At national level, this has a very minor impact due to very similar profiles.

Individual question items are grouped to contribute to specific indicators. Indicator scores are not percentages. They are calculated scores to enable interpretation of the data at a higher level than individual questions i.e. to act as signposts to help the reader to navigate large data sets.

Each question in the survey has between 4 and 8 possible responses. These are converted to a 60 point scale with 0 as the start point. To illustrate, if response 3 is chosen from 4 possible responses, this converts to a score of 66.67 as in the example below:

Indicator scores are calculated for an individual student when they provide responses to the majority of contributing questions. The exact number of responses required varies according to the indicator, based on psychometric testing undertaken by NSSE and AUSSE, but a majority is always required. The indicator score is calculated from the mean of responses given. Indicator scores for any particular student group, for example first years, are calculated as the mean of individual indicator scores.

Example of SPSS syntax to calculate indicator scores for Higher Order Learning (HO). The syntax file is available.

COMPUTE HOapplyh=(HOapply-1)*20.

COMPUTE HOanalyzeh=(HOanalyze-1)*20.

COMPUTE HOevaluateh=(HOevaluate-1)*20.

COMPUTE HOformh=(HOform-1)*20.

COMPUTE HO=mean.4(HOapplyh, HOanalyzeh, HOevaluateh, HOformh).

Response rate 

 The overall national response rate was 25.7%. The response rate for subgroups is given in the response rates and demographics section of the national report.

https://report.studentsurvey.ie/2023/chapter-2-results-2023-studentsurveyie/22-response-rates-and-demographics#node-header-2

DATA AND DOCUMENTATION: FILES’ DESCRIPTION 

Data (available through ISSDA application process) 

Documentation (available for download) 

LINKS 

www.studentsurvey.ie

Link to full Student Survey Report  https://report.studentsurvey.ie/ 

ACCESS INFORMATION 

Accessing the data 

To access the data, please complete a ISSDA Data Request Form for Research Purposes - Pseudonymised Datasets, sign it, and send it to ISSDA by email.

For teaching purposes, please complete the ISSDA Data Request Form for Teaching Purposes - Pseudonymised Datasets, and follow the procedures, as above. Teaching requests are approved on a once-off module/workshop basis. Subsequent occurrences of the module/workshop require a new teaching request form.

Data will be disseminated on receipt of a fully completed, signed form. Incomplete or unsigned forms will be returned to the data requester for completion.

Copyright

The dataset is generated from a national collaborative partnership of the Higher Education Authority, Irish Universities Association, Technological Higher Education Association, the Union of Students in Ireland and participating higher education.

Acknowledgements 

Any work based in whole or part on resources provided by the ISSDA, should  acknowledge: “StudentSurvey.ie (Irish Survey of Student Engagement) 2023" and also ISSDA, in the following way: “Accessed via the Irish Social Science Data Archive - www.ucd.ie/issda”.

Citation requirement 

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical citation 

Irish Survey of Student Engagement. (2024). StudentSurvey.ie (Irish Survey of Student Engagement) 2023. [dataset]. Version 1. Irish Social Science Data Archive. SN: 0030-10. https://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/studentsurveyie/studentsurveyie2022/

Notification 

The user shall notify the Irish Social Science Data Archive of all publications where she or he has used the data.