It’s PTES time

Before I started writing this wonk corner, I read my colleague Mack’s summary from last year to sense check whether anything major had changed. The short answer is not really, though that’s not necessarily bad news.

Satisfaction amongst postgraduate taught students remains generally high in this year’s Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES), with improvement in overall satisfaction levels across most disciplines, modes of study and student groups.

There were some changes to the questions this year. Questions on resources have been split into on-campus and online learning resources, allowing distance learners to customise their responses, as well as questions added specifically for Level 7 degree apprentices. This may partly explain the increase in satisfaction levels reported by distance learners – previously declining in comparison to on-campus learners.

It should be noted from the outset that the number of institutions that participate in PTES varies from year to year. The list of participating institutions changes, so any direct comparisons of yearly trends should be considered with acknowledgement of this context.

Satisfaction with course quality remains high at 86 per cent, the highest overall level of satisfaction since PTES began in 2014 and up two per cent since 2024 (a reminder to keep in mind the caveats about different institutions being involved each year). As with last year, while satisfaction levels are high, community continues to be a challenge amongst postgraduate taught students.

With incremental improvements, the community theme continues to score lowest of all themes in PTES – although it is also the question with the most variability between individual institutions’ scores.

Students with declared disabilities and those studying part time have significantly lower levels of belonging and community compared to their non-disabled or full-time peers.

55 per cent of full time disabled students say they feel part of a community compared to 75 per cent of non-disabled PGTs. This disparity continues for part time students with a declared disability, 44 per cent compared to 56 per cent of part time students with no declared disability. The same pattern of lower scores for disabled students, both part or full time, across the other two questions on community: “I feel a sense of belonging at my institution” and “there are sufficient opportunities to interact with other postgraduate taught students.”

Alongside this, disabled students also presented lower overall satisfaction (79 per cent for disabled students versus 88 per cent for no known disability).

These disparities are by no means unique to the postgraduate taught experience; disabled students at the undergraduate level have reported lower levels of belonging or satisfaction than their non-disabled peers. And it is clear that belonging for PGTs is an ongoing challenge but there is something in particular about disabled postgraduate taught student experience that remains concerning.

When respondents with a declared disability who said they struggled with the lack of community were asked to expand, isolation and lack of interaction with their peers came up for many.

As PGT cohorts are more likely to be diverse in age than an undergraduate student, the differences in life experiences were also felt to be a barrier to interaction with others, as one student parent shared:

“[It would improve the course experience to have] Better support for students like myself who have had to take breaks and therefore are not with their original cohort. As a student who’s also a parent, it’s been impossible for me to find other students like me and connect with anyone, so the experience has been quite isolating.

Loneliness and isolation on their course came up again:

“The integration and involvement into the course and also with other peers [would improve the course experience]. It felt quite lonely to be studying this course and not interact with other persons and talk about everything involving the course.

This comment made me think about some reflections my colleagues Mack and Jim shared after spending the summer with student union officers, many of whom were postgraduate taught students. More than a few of them shared that during their one year degree, they had not once spoken aloud in the classroom. This is alarming.

First from a community and belonging perspective, spending time around other students is not the same as interacting with them. But also a pedagogical perspective. If you think about assessment at the moment and the likely changes we will need to see to make assessment “AI-proof” (read as “LLM proof”), it is likely that oracy and the ability to communicate will become more important.

There are surely benefits to belonging and community from being encouraged to communicate with others but if students are now growing accustomed, however unintentionally, to not speaking to others, there is a risk that this becomes a harder essential graduate skill for them to build

They also mentioned that while there was space on campus to be around other people and interact, this didn’t seem the “done thing,” and given the workload of a one-year course, finding the time to join typical student social activities felt tricky.

“I was lonely a lot, contributed to stress. There were plenty of places and times to interact with staff and students, but people would go on and do their own thing. And because of the workload, I struggled to find time to do the same.

This comment is one that struck me – it’s one many will recognise. You’re in a space where you could engage with others, be it the library, a seminar, or a shared working space, but no one else seems to be talking to one another, and the thought of being the one to break that awkward silence is daunting at best.

But I do think this speaks to something more fundamental going on with current students.

The idea that if we provide spaces for students to interact with each other, belonging will simply “happen” is an idea of the past – more scaffolding is needed. Students are time poor, they are more disconnected, lonely and craving connection, yet unsure how to break this cycle. As my colleague Mack covered after a summer of talking to student leaders and doomscrolling through TikToks of students talking about feeling lonely, the current system is not providing social architecture that enables community building for all.

And judging from the comments in this year’s PTES survey, this is amplified for postgraduate taught students. This group of students are more likely to have caring responsibilities, be commuters or distance learners and therefore evening socials or attending clubs and societies are not an option – if they ever were.

There is an underlying issue within the PGT experience that requires universities to acknowledge that belonging and connection are prerequisites for positive outcomes and scaffolding opportunities for this connection is key. But in a climate where things are being scaled back, not added on, this feels more challenging than ever.