Postgraduate Research Experience Survey:

skills, employability and careers

Dr Alastair Robertson and Dr Laura Hodsdon

PRES 2007-9

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•108 HEIs took part in PRES at least once; there were 8 Scottish HEIs involved in 2007, 5 in 2008 and 8 in 2009. In total, 12 Scottish HEIs took part in PRES at least once over the three years.

• PRES 2011 106 HEIs expressed interest

• Compared to the most recent HESA statistics (2007/08) the 2009 survey included the vast majority of all Scottish PGR population and responses were received from 25% of all Scottish PGR students.

• The overall response rate to the PRES survey in 2009 was 28.6% and 32% for Scottish institutions.

• In 2009 we established a Scottish Benchmarking Club which meant that Scottish HEIs are able to compare their PRES results to aggregated Scottish PRES results apart from already available mission group benchmarking clubs.

Overall experience

• 84% of students in 2009 said that the overall experience of their programme met or exceeded their expectations

• 82.5% in 2008

• 80.7% in 2007

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Motivations and career aspirations

• A third (33.8%) of the 2009 respondents agreed that their main motivation was an interest in the subject• A third (31.7%) agreed that it was to improve their career prospects for an academic or research career• The next most popular answer (14.7%) was that “it felt like a natural step for me”. • In terms of career aspirations, nearly half (44%) had in mind an academic career in higher education (either research and teaching, or teaching only),•One in seven (13.9%) had in mind a research career in higher education• A further one in seven (13.9%) wished to pursue a research career outside higher education.

Scales - summary

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Scales - summary

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Skills development

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Skills development – highest-scoring questions

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Skills development

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Skills development - variations

“There were adequate opportunities to further develop research (2e) and transferable (2f) skills”

1.YEAR OF STUDY– Highest agreement = 1st year students• 77% (research) and 70% (transferable)

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2. CAREER INTENTIONS• Highest agreement (73.5%)

– those who would like to pursue a research career in higher education

• Lowest agreement (63%)– Those who would like to pursue ‘any other professional

career

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Professional development and career

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• NB 44% anticipated an academic career in HE (and 31% who did a PGR degree specifically for this reason) i.e. up to 56% did NOT have a career in HE in mind…

Professional development and career – discipline

The national average % of agree for these three items is 40%

• Medicine and dentistry (47% on average) and agriculture (52% on average) students agree the most with professional development items (also engineering – 44% and business management – 45%)

• Creative arts and design (34% on average) and law (35%) students then to agree the least with professional development items

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Professional development and career - domicile

• Non UK students tend to agree considerably more with all professional development items (on average 7% more in agreement than home students)

• Non EU students agree particularly strongly (49% vs 43% on average) that they were encouraged to reflect on their professional development needs.

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Professional development and career – variations

OVERALL EXPERIENCE– The better the overall experience (met or

exceeded expectations) the higher the agreement with professional development items

AGE– Higher agreement:• 26-40 year olds• Also the most motivated by improving existing career

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CURRENT ACTIVITY• Those who are making amendments to their thesis

following viva agree the least with all professional development items

• Students in the first stage of their research agree the most (44.5%) that they are encouraged to reflect on their professional development needs .

• Those awaiting their award agree the most (39.6%) that they were encouraged to think about the range of career opportunities available to them, but the difference to other groups is small

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ResourcesChris Park (2009) The research student experience: lessons from

PRES. HEA www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/ourwork/postgraduate/PRES2009.pdf

Adrian Smith Postgraduate Review (2010) One step beyond: making the most of postgraduate education. DBIS www.bis.gov.uk/postgraduate-review

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/supportingresearch/postgraduatework

Email: surveys@heacademy.ac.ukTwitter: @hea_pg

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