Results
The results of the NSS are published each year in the autumn.
They are published as Key Information Sets (KIS) on university websites; on a new national website; and on the UCAS course search tool. They are also used to help create the main university league tables.
NSS 2012 resource packs
Detailed NSS data is available in resource packs for all staff to use for internal development and monitoring purposes. To download these, please use the links below and enter your ITS password when prompted.
- NSS 2012 results: resource pack for academic faculty in arts and humanities schools [PDF 8.31MB]
- NSS 2012 results: resource pack for academic faculty in sciences schools [PDF 10.34MB]
- NSS 2012 results: resource pack for academic faculty in social sciences schools [PDF 17.10MB]
Staff are strongly encouraged to look not only at their own discipline, but explore the data for other subjects and identify areas of good practice that might inform local developments ahead of next year’s NSS.
Important note on usage restrictions
Please be aware of the distinction between internal departmental data, which cannot be used outside of the University, and JACS subject data which can be used publicly. All tables and charts have been clearly labelled as ‘internal use only’ if restrictions apply. Students’ open comments are for internal use only and cannot be published (eg on school web pages, promotional material, etc.). If you are in any doubt about the appropriate use of any NSS data, please contact James Bluring (j.n.bluring@sussex.ac.uk).
Results summary
Eighty-nine per cent of Sussex students were happy with their university experience. This keeps Sussex in the top 20 universities across the UK for student satisfaction for the third consecutive year.
Students praised teaching staff, rating Sussex highly for: quality of teaching (89 per cent); staff being good at explaining things (93 per cent); staff being enthusiastic (90 per cent); and courses being intellectually stimulating (89 per cent).
The University also moved into the UK’s top five for the organisation and management of its courses, with a satisfaction rating of 87 per cent.
There were also strong performances among individual subjects at Sussex: American Studies; Anthropology; Electrical Engineering; German/Italian; History; International Development; Law; Physics and Astronomy; Psychology; Social Work; and Sociology were all rated in their respective top 10s in the UK.
A £7.7-million refurbishment of the Library, completed in 2011, also received a positive response from students: its rating of 86 per cent was its best ever and 12 percentage points higher than in 2011 when the refurbishment was still ongoing. This combined with improved scores for IT meant that student satisfaction with learning resources at Sussex was at its second-highest level (79.8 per cent) since the NSS began in 2005.
Taking all 22 questions into account, the University averaged 79 per cent, remaining unchanged compared to 2011.
Answering an additional question for this year, 68 per cent of Sussex students – more than the national average - said they were satisfied with the Students’ Union.