Executive Summary

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This report is funded under the Evaluation and Investigations Programme of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Copies of the files required to run the Microsoft Excel software application referred to in this report can be downloaded via the Internet. To download the files, go to www.ceq98.unsw.edu.au, click on the button labelled CEQ Analysis Model and follow the steps suggested there. For enquiries regarding the software, contact:

Kerry Trembath
Senior Planning Officer
Planning Office
The University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052 Australia
Telephone:   +61 2 9385 3832
Facsimile:    +61 2 9662 6848
E-mail:     k.trembath@unsw.edu.au

The Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) provides a valuable source of data about student satisfaction with the courses that they study at Australian universities. It provides a body of data, which is collected systematically, at the national level, and has been shown to be a stable, reliable and meaningful measure of course satisfaction.

In recent years, as Australian universities have come under pressure from Government and other stakeholder groups to demonstrate the quality of their activities, CEQ data have become increasingly important in institutional performance evaluation.

This project focuses on ways in which the CEQ data can be used to improve institutional performance and monitor the effects of changes that may have a bearing on the student experience. The main outcome of the project is a CEQ Analysis Model (CEQAM) which enables the CEQ data to be examined in the context of a range of other related higher education performance data.

The model draws on the experience of planning and information analysis practitioners at The University of New South Wales, The University of Melbourne, The University of Queensland, Swinburne University of Technology, Queensland University of Technology and Curtin University of Technology; a group of institutions with different profiles, varying data requirements and varying levels of information reporting systems.

The model is designed to provide a simple and practical framework for analysing institutional performance data. It is a flexible model that enables data elements to be included according to the particular needs of individual institutions.

A Microsoft Excel software application has been developed as a facility for users of the CEQ data. It enhances their capacity to undertake a range of enquiries, such as comparing CEQ scores for a particular field of study across institutions, against a background of institutional profile data, and against a range of institutional specific performance indicators.

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