The University of Southampton has fallen from 14th to 18th out of 113 universities in the Times Higher Education‘s Student Satisfaction survey rankings, with an overall rating falling from 80.6 to 79.3.
Are students increasingly dissatisfied with Southampton Uni?
Southampton had been in the top ten with a score of 82.3 as recently as 2012, though has been in a consistent decline since achieving seventh place in 2011.
The survey, which ranks universities on 21 categories measuring student satisfaction, shows a growing level of discontent among Southampton students with the quality of the Student Union and sports facilities.
The Student Union fell from 5.6 out of 7 in 2013 to 5.5 in 2014, with a national average of 5.1. Sports facilities similarly fell from 5.8 to 5.7, though still above the national average of 5.3.
The survey also shows students believe the University has poor connections to industry, with respondents rating the Uni’s links to prospective career opportunities at just 5.5.
Despite the overall decline in satisfaction, responses show areas of strength for Southampton, highlighting in particular the ‘environment on campus’ and ‘societies’, which each garnered a strong 6.2 rating.
Despite the rankings fall, the University still remains firmly above average in all categories except ‘security’, which matched the average at 5.6.
The survey was based on responses from almost 14,700 undergraduate students, including 244 from the University of Southampton.
What do you think of the results? Let us know in the comments below.
14th to 18th is a tumble?
And the award for exaggeration of the month goes to…
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We were 7th in 2011, so that’s 11 places in the last few years, and from the top 10 towards barely being in the top 20. That’s quite a depressing drop
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Not really – Oxbridge aside, all of the universities in the Russell Group are generally regarded as being approximately on par with each other. That means you’d expect a typical Russell Group university to fluctuate between about 3rd and the mid-twenties in rankings like this. In other words, you’d expect a university like Southampton to do exactly what Southampton has done.
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Coalition Government
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It’s called variance.
The most damning thing is that you didn’t know that. What the fuck are they teaching you?
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Shit journalism period.
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What a non-story.
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Yes because a survey of 244 students is definitely representative of everyone at Soton Uni. Perhaps they are the ones with the strongest opinions who could actually be bothered to fill in yet another online survey, hence showing why we are marginally lower than last year. Who cares?!
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The only thing a survey every gives you is the opinions of the kind of people who like to fill in surveys.
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I think the National Survey and the PG experience survey will give more accurate results, although I’m not expecting them to show vastly different results.
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Wonder what the standard error is…
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