Listening to students

Find out more about how we work in partnership with students to provide the best possible experience at university.

Partnership working is important to us. We work with the Students' Union and the University’s elected sabbatical officers to provide a high-quality experience for students and improve it wherever possible.

We use student feedback to help shape their university experience through a variety of means:

Student Experience Partners

Our Student Experience Partners work in partnership with staff to develop and shape the learning and teaching environment and overall student experience.

Each year, we employ around 30 students part-time who work in partnership with staff on a variety of projects to help develop and shape the student experience. Our Partners are critical to our success, and we recognise that students must be involved in all aspects of university life in order to really improve the student experience.

In their role, these students work with staff across the University to co-create and develop university resources, offer student insights to help shape projects, collate and analyse data, work on communication strategies and tactics, and perform any other tasks that lead to improving the student experience.

Becoming a Student Experience Partner gives students an opportunity to gain experience of working at the University, whilst supporting student initiatives, learning more about the academic and wider student experience, sharing views and opinions, representing fellow students, and improving their personal and employability skills.

The work of our Student Experience Partners

To really improve the student experience, it is critical that students are involved in the decision-making process of the work we do. The scheme offers staff the opportunity to work directly with a group of students who reflect the makeup of Cardiff University students. These students receive training in data collection and analysis, communication and video creation, and student engagement.

Student representatives

Our student representatives gather student feedback and report back to staff so that improvements can be made.

The role of the representatives is to attend regular Student Staff Panels with school staff, attend College Forums with University Deans and then report on the key issues raised that may affect the student experience.

Gathering student feedback

National Student Survey

The University takes part in the annual National Student Survey (NSS) for final year students along with all Higher Education Providers across the UK. The feedback provides us with a clear picture of what the learning experience was like for someone completing their course in any given year, so we can see how the student experience is developing.

Postgraduate surveys

Cardiff University Postgraduate Taught Survey (CUPTS) runs annually, allowing students to tell us about their university experiences, which helps us identify areas where improvements can be made for postgraduate taught students. We also participate in the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES), administered by AdvanceHE, to gather feedback from our Postgraduate Research students about their experience. PRES runs every other year at Cardiff.