Study casts doubt on student satisfaction surveys

Student satisfaction is boosted by a university being designated as ‘excellent’ in Germany’s Excellence Strategy, research has found—even though this award is not related to teaching.

Students in Germany “rated their curriculum, teaching and job prospects more highly when their universities were labelled ‘excellent’ by the government”, Times Higher Education reported on 24 April.

The results of the research call into question how useful student satisfaction surveys are, said co-author Mira Fischer, an economics researcher at the University of Cologne.