JISC

Making the most of Course Information Project

Elaine Garcia & Kerry Dungayegarcia@plymouthart.ac.uk kdungay@plymouthart.ac.uk

Stage 2 – Dissemination of Research from Stage 1

• Survey included 29 Questions designed from pilot open ended question

• 2 week window to respond• Utilised surveymonkey• 94 HE Students responded• 29 FE Students responded

• Questions such as…..

When you first thought about choosing a course how important were the following factors to you……

First place students looked

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

99

6 6

3

2 2 2

1 1

FE Students

UCAS

The w

ebsit

e

Online

College

Prosp

ectus

Onsite

Word

of mouth

Open day

Profes

sional

referr

al

GoogleOther

Alread

y studyin

g at c

ollege

Leflets

/new

spap

ersRad

io0

5

10

15

20

25

3026

2421

12

97

5 4 4 3 3 2 1

HE Students

When first thinking about choosing a course, factors that were important.

FE Students• The most important factor was

course content

• Other important factors were facilities and resources, atmosphere and career related issues

• No one found course content unimportant

HE Students• Almost 100% of respondents

said that course content and facilities and resources were very important

• Atmosphere and career related issues were also very important

Location, Location, Location

FE Students

Close to home

Cost of tr

avel

Commuting/trav

el time

Ease

of trav

el

Locati

on not importa

nt

Wan

ted to

study i

n a cit

y

Wan

ted a

studen

t area

Alread

y studied

here

cultu

ral en

vironmen

t

Frien

dly en

vironmen

t0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

What was important about location

HE Students

Close to home

The c

ity its

elf in

cluding o

pportunity

/socia

l etc

Close to fa

mily/fr

iends

Didn't wan

t to m

ove out/a

way

Have d

epen

dants

Close to th

e coast

Easy

of trav

el/co

mmute to co

llege

New ex

perien

ces

Easy

of getti

ng aro

und

Closeness

of colle

ge

Costs of li

ving

Wan

ted a

studen

t city

Cost of tr

avel/

commute

to trav

el0

5

10

15

20

25

What was important about location

Changing my mind….

• HE STUDENTS

o Yes 33%

o No 67%

Have any of the factors that you thought were important / unimportant changed as you are getting closer to making a decision about where and what you wanted

to study next?

• FE STUDENTS

o Yes 31%

o No 69%

What changed?

FE Students

• Costs and course tutors became a more important factor

HE Students

• Tutors and course content became more important.

• Moving away and reputation became less important

I needed to know about...

HE Students• 79% said they did not need more

information• Extra information on module

information was the highest on the information agenda

When you have been thinking about a course is there any information that you would have liked to have had relating to the course or institution that you have

been unable to access so far?

FE Students • 72% said they did not need

more information. • Types of information required

included:

o Financial

o Learning outcomes

o Hours spent with staff and self study

Who’s opinion really matters?

FE Students

• Almost half the respondents place importance on the opinion of their parents

• Careers advisor opinion was largely fairly important

• Followed by girlfriend/partner/

boyfriend

HE Students

• 94% said that previous students’ (not on same course) opinion was fairly important

• 83% said that parents were fairly important

• Students’ opinions already on the course were also rated as important

Important information sources

FE Students

Web

site

Open Day

Prosp

ectus

Leaflet

Word

of Mouth

Intervie

w

Comments

on Socia

l Netw

orking S

ites (

Faceb

ook, etc

)

Leagu

e Tab

les0

5

10

15

20

25

How important were the following sources of in-formation to you when you were trying to find in-

formation about a course or institution? (FE)

Very Impor-tant

Fairly Impor-tant

Neither Im-portant or Unimportant

Fairly Unimpor-tantVery Unimpor-tant

HE Students

Web

site

Open Day

Prosp

ectus

Leaflet

Word

of Mouth

Intervie

w

Comments

on Socia

l Netw

orking S

ites (

Faceb

ook, etc

)

Leagu

e Tab

les0

10203040506070

How important were the following sources of in-formation to you when you were trying to find in-

formation about a course or institution? (HE)

Very Important

Fairly Important

Neither Impor-tant or Unim-portant

Fairly Unimpor-tant

Very Unimpor-tant

When can we meet?

• 58% of FE Students felt it was very important and 38% fairly important

• 76% of HE students felt it was very important and 23% fairly

• Neither group considered it unimportant.

From your experience how important do you think it is to meet the course team / people who will be teaching you before you make the decision about what /

where to study?

• Highlighting important information to students:– Course Content– Tutors experience– Tutors research and experience

– Utilising GuildHE CREST Mahara System and working with ULCC to link aspect of staff portfolios to fields within XCRI-CAP and provide students with a greater range of information so they can choose the most appropriate course and are more likely to make the right choice

What this means for our Stage 2 Project