The 2014 University Experience Survey results have been released in the last few days, and this time they included students from non-university higher education providers (NUHEPs). A total of 1,444 students from 15 NUHEPs completed a survey. Given that there are about 130 NUHEPs the results aren’t conclusive, but they are interesting.

As can be seen in the chart below, NUHEP students were generally more satisfied with their educational experience than university students. Each of the categories includes multiple related questions that are combined to produce an overall satisfaction rate. For example, the teaching quality scale contains questions on whether teachers explained things clearly, gave helpful comments on work, whether assessment tasks challenged students to learn, and other similar topics.

The area where university students are more satisfied than NUHEP students is ‘learning resources’ which includes questions about the quality of teaching spaces, library facilities, online learning materials, the quality of student spaces and common areas, and related topics. Possibly the big university campuses with their economies of scale are better on these things.

The positive responses on ‘learner engagement’ are noticeably lower for both groups. For example, only 53 per cent of students said they had a sense of belonging to their university. The recent first year experience survey picked up a negative trend in this area.

Although there is room for improvement in some areas, for most questions responses were more positive in 2014 than 2013. That supports the conclusion of the end-of-degree course experience questionnaire (trend data at p.76 of Mapping Australian higher education) that teaching quality in Australian universities is slowly but steadily improving.