University student satisfaction plunges with online learning

Campus shutdowns and the lack of face-to-face learning sent student satisfaction levels plunging in Australian universities last year.

Not so happy

The lack of face-to-face learning during COVID-19 sent student satisfaction levels plunging in Australian universities last year, with the proportion of students reporting a positive educational experience dropping from 78 per cent to 68 per cent.

The most disaffected students were at the University of Melbourne where barely half (52 per cent) of students said they were satisfied with their educational experience in 2020, down from 78 per cent in 2019.

The four largest universities in the Group of Eight (Melbourne, Sydney, Monash and UNSW), together with RMIT, recorded the five worst student satisfaction ratings. UNSW and Monash were at 60 per cent, RMIT (62 per cent) and Sydney (64 per cent).

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The University of Melbourne said in a statement that its performance in the survey — which was taken during Melbourne’s lockdown — “was not unexpected given we are an institution that has a strong emphasis on campus-based study and student engagement for a large number of domestic and international students”.

The university said it had since sought feedback from students and made improvements to its model including “creating more interactive and engaging online learning experiences”.

Victorian universities as a whole saw their student satisfaction levels drop more than the national average, which was expected because of the long COVID lockdown in the state.

However Victoria University — which has an innovative, small class, one-subject-at-a-time teaching method — saw its rating fall by only 6 percentage points to 70 per cent (compared to the national drop of 10 percentage points)

Bond, Australia’s smallest comprehensive university, had the highest satisfaction rating at 84 per cent, and was hardly affected by the forced move to online classes caused by the pandemic. Its rating was by down only 3 percentage points from the previous year.

Other universities which did well include Edith Cowan, which remained almost steady at 82 per cent satisfaction, and the University of New England which already has a high proportion of online courses and dropped by only 2 percentage points to an 81 per cent satisfaction level.

The figures come from the latest federal government sponsored student satisfaction survey which polled over 280,000 higher education students in both universities and independent institutions during August 2020. The survey was taken five months after the pandemic shut down campuses and suspended face-to-face classes.

Independent higher education institutions are also included in the survey and 75 per cent of their students reported a positive education experience, 5 percentage points down on the previous year. But these figures cannot be directly compared to universities because, in order to get statistically meaningful data, the survey compares the latest two year period (2019-20) to 2018-19, thus diluting the impact of COVID.

Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge, while acknowledging the impact of the pandemic on the survey results, said “we can and should be doing better”.

“I want all universities to focus on their main purpose: educating Australians and giving them the skills and qualifications that will get them into a job. Some of our universities have lost that focus and it’s time to return to core business,” Mr Tudge said.

“While the results were not unexpected, universities must ensure that, as classes resume for 2021, they are focused on giving local students the best possible education and learning experience.”

On Thursday the government also released the 2020 employer satisfaction survey which found that 85 per cent of employers were overall satisfied with the recent graduates whom they had hired.

Bond University was the comprehensive institution with the highest employer satisfaction rate (93 per cent) followed by the Australian Catholic University and Wollongong University at 90 per cent.