NSE 2024: AUAS student satisfaction shows slight increase

Overall, AUAS students in 2024 are more positive about their studies compared to last year. This year, 62.8 per cent of students said they were 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' compared to 59.8 per cent in 2023. The number of students who would currently choose the same degree programme again increased by over 2 per cent to 61.3 per cent.

Geleyn Meijer (rector) of the Executive Board: ‘It’s great to hear that our students are more satisfied with the education and guidance provided by AUAS this year. It’s clear that we are reaping the benefits of our additional efforts on specific issues. For example, students gave higher scores to equal treatment and academic student counselling. These are important issues to us because they touch on our core responsibilities as a university of applied sciences.

Every year, the NSE gives us insight into the experiences and views of our students, which provide us with inspiration. This is very important to us. Despite this slight increase in satisfaction, there is plenty of work still to be done – for example, in the areas of greater flexibility of education, testing and assessment.’

All universities of applied sciences in the Randstad metropolitan region show improvements, with the differences between them being relatively minor.

Most satisfied

The NSE measures student satisfaction on a number of issues. AUAS students are significantly more satisfied with roughly seven themes this year compared to last year, with their scores for the remaining four issues being virtually the same.*

Our students gave the issue of 'equal treatment' the highest score within AUAS (3.75 on a scale of 1 to 5). AUAS students feel that AUAS is a safe environment where everyone feels free to share their opinions (3.89 on a scale of 1 to 5). In the NSE, our students furthermore indicated that they felt they could safely be themselves at AUAS. To further encourage equal treatment for students, there are several initiatives in place such as TuneIn, language support and the student mentor+ scheme.

Academic student counselling was the issue that received the second-highest score from AUAS students. AUAS is investing in tailored academic student counselling to match the changing and specific needs of individual students.

AUAS students also indicated they valued the 'alignment with professional practice/careers'. Within this theme, students are most satisfied with gaining skills for professional practice (3.61 on a scale of 1 to 5).

Issues that received the lowest scores from AUAS students

Testing and assessment, the flexibility of the curriculum and the use of reflection skills received the lowest scores from students.

Testing and assessment is a crucial issue, for both the programme department and students. Although students gave a lower score on this issue (3.46 on a scale of 1 to 5), it was stable compared to last year and similar to several universities of applied sciences in the Randstad region. There is, for example, room for improvement in respect of clarity of the criteria on which students are assessed and the usefulness of feedback given. Students said they were satisfied with the way the test formats match the content of the course material.

Luka Dukanovic, Finance & Control student and AUAS student assessor. ‘It’s great to see that student satisfaction has gone up a bit – especially in respect of teaching content and professional practice. One area of focus is flexibility in education. It would be good if the degree programmes could work with students to find out where this lower score comes from, in order to address it more specifically in the future.’

See the full overview of AUAS and its degree programmes on the Studiekeuze123 website.

_{* AUAS students in 2024 are significantly more satisfied with the following issues: content and structure of education, lecturers in the degree programme, alignment with professional practice/careers, academic student counselling, challenge and commitment, equal treatment and flexibility of the curriculum. Scores for the themes of testing and assessment, engagement and contact, applied research and reflection remained virtually the same.}