National Student Survey 2020: Results for Law

The results for the 2020 National Student Survey were published on 15 July 2020. The survey consists of 27 questions where students are asked to rate their institution on a number of themes including teaching, learning opportunities, assessment and feedback, academic support and learning resources. The latest survey was completed by nearly 300,000 full-time first degree graduates.

Recognising that several Chartered ABS member schools teach Law, the Chartered ABS has for the second year running created a spreadsheet analysing the NSS results for the field of Law. The spreadsheet can be filtered by institution and question, and features drop-down menus for each question enabling users to easily view the average scores by provider mission group and region. There is also a table which compares the results for Law with the average score across all subject areas.

Download and view the results here

If you have any feedback on this analysis or would be interested in further analysis on the subject of Law please email Ramin Bokaian, Research Manager at the Chartered ABS (ramin.bokaian@charteredabs.org).

The 2020 NSS results for Business & Management Studies can be viewed here.

A total of 112 institutions provided NSS returns for the subject of Law in 2020 and below is a summary of the findings for full-time first degree leavers.

Overall levels of satisfaction amongst Law students remain high

• In 2020 84% of first degree students in Law were happy with the quality of their course, which is unchanged from last year and is 2% higher than the average level of satisfaction for students across all fields.

Levels of satisfaction with the teaching on Law courses is slightly higher than average, with students more likely to agree that their course is intellectually stimulating and helped them achieve their best work

• For the overall category of questions on ‘The teaching on the course’, the overall average of Law students expressing agreement with the statements was 85%, which is 1% higher than for students from all subjects.

• Law students report particularly high levels of agreement with the statement that their course was intellectually stimulating, with 88% agreeing compared to an average of 85% for students from other fields.

• For the statement that their course had challenged them to achieve their best work, 82% of Law students expressed agreement compared to 80% for students on all other courses.

Law students continue to report lower levels of satisfaction for learning opportunities, particularly for opportunities to incorporate information from other topics

• For the questions on the ‘Learning Opportunities’ theme, Law students reported an average level of satisfaction of 80% which is unchanged from last year and is 2% lower than for students across all subjects.

• Law students are significantly less likely to agree that their course offered opportunities to incorporate information from other topics, with 79% expressing agreement with this statement compared to an average of 84% for students across all subjects.

Levels of satisfaction in relation to assessment and feedback and academic support remain lower for Law students compared to students from other subjects

• For the statements related to ‘Assessment and feedback’, the average proportion of Law graduates expressing agreement was 70%, which is unchanged from 2019, but is again 3% lower than the average for students from all fields.

• This is primarily driven by lower levels of agreement with the statement that helpful comments had been received on their work, with 69% of Law students expressing agreement which is below the average of 74% for students across all subjects.

• In the 2020 survey 70% of Law students agreed that marking had been fair, and although this is a 1% improvement on the score recorded last year, it remains 3% below the average recorded for all students.

• Across all of the questions related to ‘Academic support’, the overall levels of satisfaction amongst Law graduates was 76%, significantly below the average for all graduates of 80%. In particular, levels of satisfaction are lower for the statement that good advice was available when students needed to make study choices on their course. For Law students 70% expressed agreement with this statement, compared to 75% for all students.

Levels of satisfaction remain favourable for organisation and management and learning resources, but Law students remain less satisfied than students from other subjects in the area of learning community

• For the ‘Organisation and management’ theme, the overall levels of satisfaction amongst Law graduates of 74% are 1% higher than for students from all fields, although in the last year there has been a 3% decline in the proportion of Law students agreeing that their course is well-organised and running smoothly (70% in 2020, compared to 73% in 2019).

• For the ‘Learning resources’ questions the average levels of agreement remain unchanged at 85% which is 1% higher than the average for students across all subjects. Since 2019 there has been a 1% improvement in the proportion of students agreeing that library resources had supported their learning well.

• For the ‘Learning Community’ questions the overall levels of satisfaction for Law students are 70%, which is unchanged from 2019 but remains significantly below the average of 77% for all students.

• Levels of agreement with the statement related to feeling part of a community of staff and students of 64% is less than the average for all students of 69%. For the statement related to having had the right opportunities to work with other students as part of their course, the levels of agreement are 75% which is significantly behind the all subject average of 84%.

Read the analysis here