Survey timing
These are our responses and clarifications to issues raised about the survey timing in our consultation.
We have developed a timeline that will account for all possible outcomes from higher education (HE). In the case of Master’s students, we anticipate most will still be formally registered on their degree so they will report that as their main activity.
For those graduates not still registered on the course, we will have questions in the survey to help us capture their completed studies and future activity. There will be a question asking graduates if they have completed further study in the last year, and another question asking if they will start a further course or employment in the coming month (which would capture anyone in limbo between completing an Master’s course and starting a PhD or starting work).
The census week forms part of the contact period, so data will start being collected during that week.
The survey will make use of piping to clarify this. We will input the course that the graduate is being surveyed about into the survey to make it clear to them what course we are asking about.
We have set census dates that we believe are the most appropriate points to capture the diversity of graduate outcomes. We have also aimed to set points that are future-proof and not linked to current models of provision. We have kept the TEF working group informed of our proposals.
The survey is universal and so we believe these should remain part of the population. We will consider how we can route these graduates through the survey in a way which is more appropriate to them, and/or adapt the question wording for their circumstances.
The crucial factor in selecting 15 months is to obtain the most useful information about transitions into the labour market following graduation, while retaining a sufficiently high response rate. See Rachel Hewitt’s blog for further information.
December 2018.
No – we’ll be capturing everyone who graduates from universities/colleges (just some people a little later than we would with the current DLHE model). The cohort of graduates from the 2017/18 academic year will be the first to receive the NewDLHE survey.