Strategic and Governance Services

The Commonwealth Government has established the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) project as a way to gather sector benchmarkable data on student and graduate satisfaction and outcomes. Results are made publicly available on the QILT website, are also used in the Good Universities Guide and are often reported in the media.

The main surveys under the QILT banner are:

• Student Experience Survey (SES) – Each year current students are asked about a range of aspects of their university experience, including overall educational experience, teaching quality, skills development, learning resources, learner engagement and student support. Students are also asked whether they seriously considered leaving university, and if so why. SES national reports are available from the QILT website.
• Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) – The GOS is sent to graduates around four to six months after they complete their qualifications. The questionnaire seeks feedback on things such as: employment status, extend to which graduate felt prepared for the workplace and satisfaction with recently completed course. If respondents agree, they are then sent a similar survey (the GOS-Longitudinal) three years later, as a way of following their path in terms of career development or further studies.
• Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) – The CEQ is completed in conjunction with the GOS, and allows students to provide information on their study experiences at the University. It evaluates students' perceptions of teaching quality, skills improvement and overall satisfaction.
• Graduate Outcomes Survey-Longitudinal (GOS-L) – The GOS-L supplements the GOS by collecting information on medium-term employment outcomes 3 years after graduation. The results show how employment status and salary can change for graduates over time. The GOS-L replaces the Beyond Graduation Survey (BGS).
• Postgraduate Research Experience Questionnaire (PREQ) – The PREQ is conducted annually and targets all graduating students who have completed research degrees. It evaluates areas including supervision, intellectual climate, skills development, infrastructure, thesis examination, clarity of goals and overall satisfaction.
• Employer Satisfaction Survey (ESS) – The ESS seeks feedback from supervisors of recent graduates on the generic skills, technical skills and work readiness of the graduate they employ. The results indicate the quality of the University's education in preparing students for the workforce. ESS national reports are available from the QILT website.

ECU, like most Australian Universities participates in this survey of onshore international students. The survey seeks feedback on four broad themes:

• Arrival
• Living
• Learning
• Support

There are also questions about why students chose to study in Perth, Australia, and more specifically at ECU. The ISB is overseen by iGraduate.

Australian Graduate Survey is administered to graduates approximately four months following the completion of their course. There are three distinct components of the AGS:

• Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) - looks at graduates' employment and further study activity four months after completion of their course
• Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) - explores graduates' perceptions on their course and teaching staff
• Postgraduate Research Experience Questionnaire (PREQ) - seeks feedback from research postgraduates' on their experience in their higher degree course

The AGS is nationally coordinated by Graduate Careers Australia (GCA). Survey Services manages the ECU campaign; codes responses from graduates and organises the final submission of ECU's data set.

Universities are required to achieve a 50% response rate in order to make any public use of their data. ECU’s response rates are typically around the national average, or above, and in the range of 55% to 62% depending on the cohort, or GDS/CEQ focus.

Access to ECU results for both GDS and CEQ is available via the EIM data warehouse which now hosts a number of managed reports. Please contact your School, or the data warehouse team (eimsupport@ecu.edu.au) for assistance.

AGS data is used in a range of university reporting, and also feeds into the My University website, and the Good Universities Guide.

Graduate Destination Survey (GDS)

Graduate outcomes are coded by the GCA to a single most appropriate category for reporting purposes. The most commonly reported measure from the GDS is the percentage of ‘available’ graduates who are in full-time work at the time of the survey. Available means those who are in or seeking full-time work. It is common for GDS data to be reported only for domestic graduates, and frequently just for bachelor-level qualifications.

Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ)

The CEQ is typically reported in terms of three core scales (strictly speaking, two scales and a single item): The composition of these scales is as shown below.

Graduates can respond on up to two majors, and use a five-point Likert agree-disagree scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree)

CEQ reporting can use a range of metrics:

• % Agreement: the proportion of responses which are ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’
• % Broad Agreement: the proportion of responses which are ‘neither agree nor disagree’, ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’.
• Mean Scale Score: this is based on a mapping of the five response categories to -100, -50, 0, 50, 100.
• Other metrics: various Commonwealth Government reports, including the My Universities website, use a metric which can be seen as a compromise between % Agreement and % Broad Agreement.

The first of these, % Agreement, tends to be the most commonly reported metric in the sector. The GCA recommends a general rule of thumb that differences of less than 5 points are not likely to be of ‘practical interest’.

The BGS can be seen as an extension of the AGS, where students surveyed upon completion of their courses are then followed up 3 and then 5 years afterwards and asked similar questions about their employment status, further study outcomes, and perceptions of their ECU course.