National Student Survey (NSS)
This national survey asks final year undergraduates about their experience on their course. It runs during February, March and April every year and is administered by Ipsos Mori, an independent market research agency. Survey responses are anonymous.
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Who is eligible for the NSS?
The National Student Survey 2025 is open for University of the Highlands and Islands students between 03 February and 30 April 2025.
All students in their final year of a three or four year undergraduate degree, or the final year of an HND are eligible to complete the survey.
Eligible students will be contacted by Ipsos Mori via email and will be encouraged to participate by their programme leader and PAT. You can also complete the survey at any time during the above dates by visiting www.thestudentsurvey.com. An initial email invitation, with a personalised link, will be sent to all eligible students on the Thursday of our start week (06 February).
What questions are asked?
The survey contains question sets divided into sections including: teaching on my course, assessment and feedback, organisation and management, learning opportunities, learning community and student voice. There are additional optional multiple choice questions, and participants are invited to leave comments about particularly positive or negative aspects of their student experience. The NSS 2025 question set is available to download.
How do I get my Amazon voucher?
The university offers a prize draw for one of four £50 Amazon vouchers as our way of saying thank you to students participating in the survey. To claim enter the draw, visit the survey and tick the box that you would like to be included in the draw. Survey responses are not linked in any way to the draw, with the winner being chosen randomly by our survey provider, Ipsos Mori. Only students eligible to participate in the NSS may enter, but completion of the survey is not required to enter the draw. Please email the NSS team at nssuhi@uhi.ac.uk with any questions.
What happens to the results?
The university receives a full set of anonymised NSS survey data in July/August. The data is analysed and sent to various committees who use them to plan for the following academic year. Courses who perform below average for 'overall satisfaction' are required to write action plans detailing how they will address students' concerns in the next academic year.
The NSS 2024 Brief Report detailing survey results is now available.
