Triangulating Postgraduate Surveys for Enhancement - an internationalisation perspective

The introduction of the Higher Education Academy's Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (HEA PTES) aimed to fill a gap in our understanding of the motivations, expectations, and levels of satisfaction among this body of students, similar to the way the National Student Survey (NSS) has already done for our understanding of undergraduates. There are differences in these two surveys, the main differences being that the HEA PTES does not contribute to league table positions, and, while individual institutions receive individual results, the overall results of the survey are not reported by institution when publicised. While any additional knowledge about these students can only be welcomed by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that are serious about enhancing the postgraduate taught student experience, relying on either institutional or benchmark group data from the PTES alone to do this is fraught with problems. This paper presents some of these problems identified by one HEI participating in the PTES for the first time in 2010. Contextualised within business and management education, this paper also therefore presents insights into the rationale behind the design of, and results gained from, additional surveys undertaken at the institution that can help triangulate results to aid our understanding, and enhance the experience particularly of the growing number of international postgraduate students entering masters' programmes in UK HEIs.