Student:Staff ratio (SSR) survey report



Student:Staff ratio (SSR) survey reportExecutive summaryThe aim of the SSR survey was to highlight key known issues with the SSR methodology, and seek feedback from HE sector representatives on their perceptions of issues and suggestions for improvements. It was sent out to planners at HE providers (HEPs) in December 2015 via the Higher Education Strategic Planners Association (HESPA). There was a total of 69 responses. 68 were from 59 different HEPs, and one from the Russell Group (see the appendix for the list of organisations who responded, and the number of responses from each). Almost all the survey questions were optional – the only compulsory questions were which HE provider the respondent was from, and whether or not they would be happy for HESA to contact them for further information should the need arise. Respondents therefore did not reply to every question. Most of the questions elicited a free text response, and these have been grouped as much as possible in the summary; while this gives the possibility to quantify the responses for some questions, it should be noted that this may be subjective. The vast majority of respondents believe that HESA should continue to produce the SSR. The view tends to be that the SSRs are flawed, and could probably be improved, but that it is better for HESA to continue to use a standard methodology than for this to be stopped, and for users of the data (such as league tables) to have free reign to create their own version. Some respondents did not want changes to be made to the methodology, as they would like to be able to do consistent time series analysis using the data that they have had previously. Others felt that a proper analysis of all the issues, and a much more detailed review of the SSR methodology, needs to take place before any changes are made. Here is a brief summary of each question. As per the HESA standard, percentage calculations exclude unknowns. The majority of respondents (86%, out of 66) believe that the SSR is still a valid, relevant and meaningful concept in UK higher education (Q1), and an even larger proportion (98% out of 67) think that HESA should continue to calculate and release the SSR (Q2). 82% (out of 57) believe that we should reduce the FTE included in the SSR calculation for students on a placement for the whole of the year to 20% (from 50%). The majority of respondents (21 out of 36 whose response can be summarised as yes or no, from a total of 47) were not in favour of making any reduction to the FTE for students on placement for a part of the year. The reasons for these included concerns about making the SSR over-complicated (which came up in response to several of the questions), and that there is no consistent way to do this across the sector. A quarter of the respondents (9 out of 45) either had no view about whether the FTE for students abroad for the year as a whole should be reduced, or were not sure. 86% of those whose responses could be grouped as yes or no were in favour of a reduction being made, either in line with placement students (the most popular option) or with a set amount. A lower proportion were in favour of reducing the FTE for those abroad for part of the year (51% out of 33). Again, there were 9 respondents who either did not know or had no view about whether the FTE for these students should be reduced. There were 23 respondents who were aware of other types of students undertaking part of their study outside the reporting HE provider who are not adequately dealt with in the current SSR definition. This resulted in a list of 7 different types of student provisions for which some issues exist. For more information please see page 10 of the report, which lists these. The majority of respondents (74%) do not believe that any additional weighting (e.g. for different levels of study/different subjects) should be applied. Reasons for this included concerns about over-complicating the SSR and different treatment of these students across different HEPs (which means that it would be difficult/impossible to find a weight that would suit all HEPs).There was a mix of responses to the question of whether SSRs presented at a level describing the whole HE provider are meaningful. Many answers commented on whether they thought HEP level SSRs should be published, and if they find them useful rather than whether they are meaningful. Some HEPs find the HEP-level SSR useful, while others only want these if they are disaggregated by cost centre/subject. Even if the respondent did not find the HEP-level SSR particularly meaningful or useful, several expressed a concern that if HESA did not provide the SSR at this level, then the end users would calculate it themselves based on the data they had, and it would be better for HESA to continue to do this. 78% (out of 38) of respondents would support the inclusion of data from the Individual Learner Record (ILR) in the SSR. However, a large proportion of respondents did not know whether they would support this (40% - 28 responses out of a total of 66 - the number of unknowns is almost as high as the number of supporting responses). Respondents highlighted a number of issues with trying to adjust the FTE for staff on combined teaching and research contracts to only take into account the teaching part. A TRAC average was suggested, but there are concerns about how accurate this would be, and how TRAC is calculated. There are concerns that an average would not suit everyone (or possibly anyone). Alternative suggestions included re-defining the staff return to include a field where the academic employment function can be apportioned – while a couple of people were in support of this, there were more (throughout the survey, not just for this question) who would be against there being any additional burden in completing the staff (or student) record. A number of other issues with the SSR definition were cited, along with a few suggestions as to how we might address them. Please see detailed summary and appendix for the full detail of these. Detailed summaryPercentages for questions where there is a yes/no/I don’t know response allowed are based on the total who expressed a definite view (yes or no). The percentage of all ‘don’t know’ responses to each question is also provided for context. Please note that where a question had multiple parts (e.g. a, b and c sections), these have been grouped together.Q1. Do you believe that the Student:Staff Ratio is still a valid, relevant and meaningful concept in UK Higher Education?There were 68 responses to this question. AnswerNo. of responsesPercentageYes5786.4%No913.6%Total known66?I don't know22.9%Q2. Should HESA continue to calculate and release Student:Staff ratios? Please note that if HESA were to discontinue this, it is highly likely that data users would create their own versions of the measure. This would lead to differing versions of the measure in use for different applications. It would also reduce the scope for HESA, and the HE sector, to influence the choice of definitions used.Please give reason(s) for your answer.There were 69 responses to this question.AnswerNo. of responsesPercentageYes6698.5%No11.5%Total known67?I don't know22.9%7 respondents said that the SSR is not a valid, relevant and meaningful concept, but despite this, that HESA should still produce it. See below for the cross-tabulation of responses to questions 1 and 2. Q2???Q1YesNoI don't knowTotalYes570057No7119I don't know/blank2013Total661269In the section for reason(s) for respondents’ answers, many replied including reasons for both question 1 and question 2. Reasons: No for question 1, yes for question 2 (7 responses):It is better to have a standard, central calculation of the SSR rather than different versions. There is support for revision of the SSR methodology and definitions, but it is thought that it should be continued until a suitable alternative can be found.The limitations of the SSR are not necessarily understood by users, and should be more clearly explained. Yes for question 1 and for question 2 (57 responses):There is quite a bit of support for HESA to continue producing the data, for example HESA is a trusted body, it is best to have a standard/official SSR calculation, HESA understands the data, HESA is a good influence on collecting the data and ensuring that people are using it properly, keeping the SSR with HESA helps to maintain consistency etc. While the SSR is flawed, it does give some indication of staff resources. The current methodology is not perfect, but it is clear and consistent.It is better to have an independent calculation based on quality controlled data. I don’t know/blank for question 1 and Yes for question 2 (2 responses):Having a standard measure is good, but they are uncertain how meaningful it is. The SSR should be continued, but there should be changes to the methodology to reflect the proportion of staff time devoted to teaching. No/I don’t know for question 1 and No/I don’t know for question 2 (3 responses):The present calculation does not measure any of the 6 aspects described in the introduction to the survey. It may be better not to calculate it, as the SSR is misleading. For example, there is no guaranteed link between the SSR and teaching quality. The SSR is not useful/meaningful, but people still want it and may calculate their own if there is no standard version.There are issues around the fact that research-intensive HEPs can shift SSRs more easily than larger post-92 HEPs. SSRs can also cause additional pressure on recruitment for HEPs, and additional cost.Query as to whether there is a need for as many academic staff as previously, given the growth of digital/remote learning. Q3a. The Student:Staff ratio methodology currently includes 50% of the reported FTE for students who are on industrial (or other) placement for the year as a whole. In England, under the current fee regime HE providers may charge a maximum of 20% of a full-time fee to students on a placement year. Should the FTE for these students (across the UK) be aligned to this maximum?Q3b. Please give the reason(s) for your answer.AnswerNo. of responsesPercentageYes4782.5%No1017.5%Total known57?I don't know/blank1217.4%83% of respondents from HE providers in England were in favour of switching to the 20% FTE. There were not enough respondents from Wales and Scotland to be able to provide a percentage for these, however five out of five respondents from HE providers in Wales were in favour of the switch, while for Scotland two out of five were in favour, two were against and one did not know. Reasons:Yes responses:The fee reflects the cost of learning, and the FTE used in the SSR should as well. This would be a more accurate reflection of the load on academics supervising students on placement years. Assuming there is a rationale behind the fee calculation, it would make sense for the SSR FTE to match. This would be a closer representation of contact time – although it is noted that contact time will vary between different courses, and at different HEPs. Counting placement students as 0.5 FTE disadvantages HEPs with a lot of placement students, which could mean that less HEPs will offer placements (this would be a bad thing, as these are considered to be beneficial). It makes sense for there to be correlation between what a student is paying, and the resource available to them.No responses:Just because a HEP only get 20% of the fee, it does not mean that placement students only require 20% of the attention.Any increase in accuracy to the SSR may not be worth the impact on looking at time-series data. 50% is not representative of the time for placement students to engage with academic resource, but 20% would not be either. These students are not present, so their FTE should not be counted. There is no rationale/evidence for the 20% figure – evidence is needed to establish if this is a credible alternative, and applicable to the SSR. Support for a reduction of FTE for placement students, but they feel this should not be related to fee levels. Students on placements still receive teaching input through supervision and visits, and this should stay at the higher rate of 50%. I don’t know responses:A more fundamental re-thinking of the SSR is necessary. Making small adjustments to some weightings will not ultimately address all the issues. Is there evidence for including 20% of the FTE based on actual support and contact time for placement students compared to non-placement students? It would be better if HESA was collecting the actual FTE for contact time. This should be related to the effort needed to support placement students, not the fee they pay. Modelling should be done to determine the impact on relevant positions between HEPs. This is to ensure that it does not disproportionately affect specific groups of HEPs, or specific locations. It should be considered whether this is an improvement that needs to be made, and if it would be counter-acted by any other changes. Q3c. If you do not agree that the FTE for these students should be reduced to 20% of the reported FTE, do you have an alternative view on what the size of the reduction should be (please provide the rationale for your suggestion and comment in particular on whether the funding policies in the other UK nations would suggest an alternative figure)?Summary of comments where the answer to Q3a is No (note there is some duplication between these and the reasons provided above):50 % is as valid as any other measure. Leave this as it is, for continuity between years. 20% is still not reflective of the proportion of time a student is engaged with academic resource during a placement year. These students should be removed altogether.No specific view on what the reduction should be. However, there should be a credible and detailed rationale behind using a specific reduction, and a correlation with the funding policy is not sufficient justification. 25% reflects an HEP’s involvement in the course provision for these students. Q4. Do you have a view on the preferred size of reduction in reported FTE applicable for students who are recorded as on industrial (or other) placement for part of the academic year (the current SSR methodology does not make any reduction to the FTE for these students, and the HESA Student Record does not currently provide a means of determining what proportion of the academic year 'part' may represent)?There were 47 responses to question 4. 15 respondents were in favour of reducing the FTE for part placements2 were in favour of reducing the FTE, but only for students who spent more than 25% or 50% of the year on placement. 21 were not in favour of reducing this FTE9 did not come down clearly in favour one way of the other.For those respondents who were in favour, the suggestions/queries were along the following lines:Add a teaching load per student to the record.Record the amount of time that the placement actually takes.Align it to the fee charged to partial placement students, or set this to 50%.Assume that the student is on placement for one semester, so include the full FTE for one semester, and 20% of the FTE for the other (in line with the whole-year placement suggestion). This would mean we were include 0.6 FTE for these students. However, it was clear that many respondents would not support any additional burden in returning the student record (this was noted throughout the survey, and not just for this question). For those respondents who were not in favour, the suggestions/queries were along the following lines:This would be problematic given that we don’t collect the proportion of time spent on partial placement, and they would not want any extra burden adding to the student record collection.This would add an extra level of complication to the methodology. For those respondents who were not sure, the suggestions/queries were along the following lines:Would the benefit of making this sort of change be worth the effort to do so?It would be useful to see an estimate of the impact of this change before it was made. The FTE could be reduced for thin sandwich students (using mode, specfee and locsdy to identify these), but not for other partial placements.It would be better to have a more detailed consultation with the sector before any changes to/complication of the SSR methodology is made. Q5a: Do you have a view on the preferred size of reduction in reported FTE applicable for students who are recorded as abroad for the whole year (students may be studying abroad, or working or volunteering abroad)?There were 45 responses to this question. 31 respondents were in favour of making a reduction to the FTE for students abroad for the whole year. 5 said there should be no reduction.9 did not have a specific view on a reduction.Those in favour of reducing the FTE for students who are abroad for the whole year had different suggestions:50%.20%, in line with the full-year placement.0 FTE if they are away for the whole year.Minimal/0 FTE. 20% weighting for the time spent studying abroad, and 0% for work and volunteering.15% to reflect the maximum percentage of a full-time fee that HEPs can charge for these students. 10%.Students studying abroad should be counted fully, but work/volunteering abroad should have a different load, more in line with placements (e.g. 100% for the time spent studying abroad, and 20% for work/volunteering). Those who said there should be no reduction had the following reasons:Incoming exchange students are excluded, so the least-worst assumption is that this balances the outgoing students. Contact with student abroad can take a significant amount of resource – they will email their UK HEP for any questions/problems they encounter. More analysis needs to be done into this before any reduction is made. Those who did not have a specific view on this did point out that they would want this to be consistent across the sector. There was also one further request for evidence to justify any change. Q5b: Do you have a view on the preferred size of reduction in reported FTE applicable for students who are recorded as abroad for part of the academic year (students may be studying abroad, or working or volunteering abroad, and the HESA Student Record does not currently provide a means of determining what proportion of the academic year 'part' may represent)?There were 42 responses to this question. 18 respondents were in favour of making a reduction to the FTE for students abroad for part of the year. 16 respondents said they were not in favour of this. 8 had no specific view, or were not sure. From those in favour, there were the following suggestions/issues:Reduce the FTE for students where the time spent abroad is more than 50% of the year. Calculate the FTE for the time spent at the reporting HEP. Assume that the student is on placement for one semester, so include the full FTE for one semester, and 20% of the FTE for the other (in line with the whole-year placement suggestion). This would mean we were include 60% FTE for these students. Align the FTE to the fee that can be charged to these students. Set to 50% - this would be a better proxy than 100%, but not perfect for all cases. Use the mobility data to work out a better proportion (MOBDURA). 60% (would not want any new fields to be added to the record). Those who do not want a reduction said:Outgoing study abroad balances incoming study abroad students, so there is no need for a reduction. This would be complicated to administer so things should stay as they are. Length of placements can vary significantly, so a standard reduction would not improve the accuracy of the SSR. It seems preferable to leave students with a full FTE until further details on length of placement become available. Not without analysing the data further. Added complexity to the methodology.Those who did not have a specific view/suggestion said:Whatever decision is made there needs to be clear guidance so that HEPs can calculate the FTE. It would be desirable to ascertain what proportion ‘part’ represents so that this can be discounted in the SSR, but not if it means adding burden to the student record collection. It’s necessary to consider what students are doing, not just that they are abroad – different weighting could be given to study, work and volunteering. Q6a. Are you aware of other types of students who undertake part of their study outside the reporting HE provider and who are not adequately treated within the current SSR definition (note: franchising arrangements are largely recorded in detail within the HESA Student Record, which results in adjustments to FTE in the SSR definition)?There were 54 responses to this question. 31 (57%) respondents said that they were not aware of other types of students who are not adequately treated within the current SSR definition, and 23 (43%) said that they were. There were a few comments from those who were not aware of these students, which were in support of further analysis or keeping the SSR methodology as it is, and not over-complicating it. The 23 respondents who said that they were aware of issues with other students suggested the following groups (note: some respondents included more than of the issues below):StudentsNo. of respondents who suggested thisITT students (school placements)/teaching students/School Direct7Student healthcare practitioners/NHS students/nursing students7Jointly taught courses (e.g. NHS or other partners)/teaching contracted to an organisation not individual (e.g. NHS)6Offshore students (in overseas aggregate return - staff teaching these may be included in the staff return)4Distance learning students3Apprenticeships1PGR students1Q6b. Do you have any suggestions as to how the FTE of such students may be better reflected in the SSR definition?18 of the 23 respondents who had said that they were aware of students who are not adequately treated in the SSR replied to question 6b. The responses were as follows:There is no way to resolve the issue given what data is currently collected. There needs to be a teaching hours/teaching load collected as well as the stuload. For PGR students, you could record the IDs of staff teaching these students and exclude the proportion of PGR students who are taught by research only staff. In the meantime, HEPs should specify what proportion of their PGR students are supervised by research staff so that an average reduction can be derived. For jointly taught courses (just for the SSR, not for other statistics), only include the FTE taught by the lead organisation. Exclude time spend on school placements. Carry out additional analysis to create weightings (looking at things like the fee levels and average time spent on such activities). Reflect academic contact and the support needed for placements. If student FTE is excluded for certain students, the corresponding staff FTE also needs to be excluded. Q7. Do you believe that weightings should be applied for certain students to better reflect the resource requirements of the staff teaching them (e.g. postgraduate students vs undergraduate students, or those studying particular subjects)? Do you have any suggestions as to what weightings should be applied to which types of students?There were 55 responses to question 7. These can be grouped as follows:AnswerNo. of responsesPercentageYes1425.9%No4074.1%Total known54?I don't know11.8%Those in favour of weighting specific students said:Some students take more resource than others. Some HEPs calculate their own internal SSRs using weighting – for example, counting non-UK domiciled students higher than UK domiciles, and PGT students as more than UG or PGR students. There is an appetite for further analysis into this – some would be in favour of weighting provided that there was evidence for doing so. Those not in favour said:This would add an extra level of complication to the SSR. This would be too generalised.There is no way of doing this rigorously across the sector. A simple approach is fairer. Q8. Are SSRs presented at a level describing the whole HE provider meaningful, or should SSRs always be presented at a more disaggregated level (e.g. by subject or cost centre)?There were 62 responses to this question. These were very mixed. Some thought that SSRs should always be at the most disaggregated level possible, and others said that there were issues with an SSR at the HE-provider level. Some also felt that there are issues with both the cost centre and subject, and aligning these to the groupings used in league tables. Some respondents though that the HE-provider SSR is meaningless, while others find it useful. It was also suggested that if we did not provide an HE-provider SSR, but show the data by HE provider and cost centre/subject with no HEP total, then league tables/data users would calculate their own totals. Q9a. The HESA Student Record now contains only partial coverage of FE level study due to the fact that many providers now report such provision directly to the Individual Learner Record (ILR) of the Skills Funding Agency. The proportion of staff time spent on providing teaching to FE level students within HE providers cannot be distinguished from the HESA Staff Record so there is a potential imbalance in the resulting SSRs calculated. Would you support the use of data sourced and derived from the ILR on the amount of FE study within the SSR calculation for HE providers?Q9b. Please give the reason(s) for your answer.There were 66 responses to question 9a. AnswerNo. of responsesPercentageYes3078.9%No821.1%Total known38?I don't know2840.6%30 respondents were in favour of using the ILR data, 8 were not in favour, and 28 did not know if they would support this or not.Those in favour said:All reasonably easily available and relevant data should be used.To make any comparison more meaningful.To get a more accurate picture.To level the playing field.So that we are not under-reporting the SSR for HEPs with a large FE provision. If staff teaching FE are included, the students should be as well.SSRs should take into account FE as well as HE, but they would prefer to exclude FE students and FE staff – this would require a change to the staff record. Care needs to be taken for students who are in both the ILR and HESA data. Those who would not support using the ILR said:A more fundamental review of the SSR is needed.Transfer of data between the ILR and HESA is problematic, and this is a relatively minor issue.Not all HEPs submit to the ILR, and it would be additional burden for them to do so. Unless you can make sure that this is a fair representation of the full sector it is unfair to include partial data.This would make the data more complex.Those who were unsure said:Not applicable – we have no FE provision.An easier way would be to collect information on staff teaching FE. We would support removal of FE students/staff from the SSR.We report the FE student FTE, but much of the teaching is done by third party providers so we do not report the full staff FTE. No answer to this apart from removing all FE students from the SSR. Do we need different SSRs for modes/levels of study?Would this only apply to England?Q10. At present the SSR definition makes no attempt to isolate the teaching-only FTE for those staff holding combined teaching and research contracts. Do you have any ideas as to how this division of FTE could be derived (for example, would you support the idea of applying a sector average proportion split derived from TRAC data [given that it is highly unlikely that HESA would be permitted to utilise provider-specific TRAC data])?There were 60 responses to question 10. Again, these were quite mixed. Some respondents would not want the TRAC to be used at all as they are dubious about the quality of data. Others would support using the TRAC and would be happy with a sector average, while still others would support using the TRAC but only if this was available for different HEPs, and not just as a sector average. As well as the TRAC data, there were suggestions to use research income/expenditure data, assuming that those HEPs with more research funding will spend more time on research. Other suggestions were to include information on the proportion of staff time spent on teaching and research in the staff record, or to assume that there is a specific proportion of time spent in teaching for teaching and research staff (e.g. they would spend 30% of their time on research, so only 70% of the FTE for teaching and research staff should be included in the SSR). Some respondents thought that no changes should be made at all to the teaching and research staff FTE. Q11. Are you aware of any other problems with the current SSR definition? Do you have any other ideas for improvements to the definition or the ways in which SSRs are presented and used?There were 45 responses to question 11. 5 respondents said that they weren’t aware of any other problems with the definition, and there were a few comments here:No, it seems quite a complex area to understand.None other than those discussed.No – we are aware of limitations but would argue that the strength of the current SSR is that it is a simple and consistent methodology. Adding complexity and spurious levels of detail would be unhelpful. 40 responded with further comments:SSRs should be presented against a sector benchmark, adjusted for cost-centre, and level of study (if possible).The ratio should be ‘student taught hours’ against ‘staff teaching hours’ on a modular basis. Data for academic partnerships needs to be more visible.Different SSRs for UG, PGT, and PGR students would be sensible (this would need different definitions of academic staff). There are issues for some subjects, to do with how staff are employed and who is carrying out the teaching. Some subjects are funded in different ways to others. HESA should be putting serious thought into capturing contact time (including class sizes and office hours). The SSR only takes into account academic staff – other staff have input into the student experience, e.g. course developers, support staff etc. Issues with allocating students/staff to cost centres.A clear statement is needed that explains what the SSR is, which its purpose is, and what it should/should not be used for.SSRs are provided to users with a version including atypical staff, and a version excluding these. Atypical staff should always be included. Attempting to create a perfect definition for the SSR could invalidate a useful proxy resource which at present is understood and widely used despite its flaws. Caveats should be added to help clarify what is included in the SSR. For 2015/16 onwards, the franchise aspect of PGR students will not be collected in PCOLAB, but in the UOAPCNT field in the REF entity. Use of teaching FTE would be a massive improvement. An addition would be to record the FTE of staff who directly support teaching (such as lab technicians) and apply a weighting to their FTE. ................
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