Postgraduate Research Experience Survey
About PRES
The national Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES) is coordinated by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and has been running since 2007.
PRES is available to all higher education institutions across the UK with postgraduate research (PGR) student provision. Currently around 100 HEIs participate in the survey.
PRES helps institutions enhance the quality of the PGR experience by collecting feedback from current PGR students in a systematic and user-friendly way.
Find out more about PRES from the HEA
Scope of the survey
The primary aim of the survey is to measure the overall experience of studying at the postgraduate research level. Areas for questioning have been designed to explore:
- supervision
- resources
- research culture
- progress and assessment
- responsibilities
- research skills
- professional development
- opportunities
- and overall experience
In addition, this year the University of Bath will ask a few questions on:
- assessment and feedback
- student voice
- Students' Union and the Postgratuate Association (PGA)
The PRES timetable
The schedule for this year is:
- start date: Tuesday 5 March
- close date: Thursday 16 May
Maximising response rates
Weekly response rate figures are provided that enable us to target our marketing and promotional activities to specific departments and programmes to ensure they reach the thresholds for publication.
To help you keep up-to-date with the PRES response rates from students in your Department, we provide regular updates on progress. These will be available during the survey period.
Check your PRES response rates
Encouraging student participation
In order to collect the most accurate data possible we want to encourage a high number of responses from our students.
One of the ways we achieve this response rate is by developing an environment of open and honest feedback and by highlighting the PRES campaign with students.
We promote the PRES to our students through a varety of institutional events and promotions. If you would like to further raise the profile of the PRES with students in your Department, we provide a range of marketing materials which will be available closer to the survey launch date.
Feeding back to students
Responding to student feedback is an effective way of encouraging participation in future surveys. It is expected that results of the PRES will be fed back to the student body by departments/faculties and their Staff Student Liaison Committee so that students can see that the University has been responsive to their feedback.
The Code of Practice on Research Degrees (QA7) outlines how academic departments should respond to the data from PRES.
Survey methodology
PRES uses the same method as the Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS), which has been used successfully by HEIs across the UK in recent years for collecting feedback from research staff, and the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) for collecting feedback from research students. Both surveys are based on online questionnaires that are delivered via the Bristol Online Surveys (BOS) website.
A PRES Steering Group was established by the HEA and pilot of the survey was run with a small number of HEIs.
In 2006/07, 544 students took part , constituting a response rate of 25.2%. PRES 2007/08 saw a total of 16,524 students from 73 higher education institutions taking part in the survey, with an overall response rate of 28.9%. In PRES 2010/11, 31,202 students took part, constituting a response rate of 32.0%.
