Download Consultation on detailed changes to the Key Information Set data

Consultation on detailed changes to
the Key Information Set data
collection for 2017 and approaches
to presenting data on the successor
to the Unistats website
A submission from the Association of
Colleges: July 2016
Further education colleges provide high-quality technical and professional
education and training for young people, adults and employers. They prepare
over three million students with valuable employability skills, helping to develop
their career opportunities.
Colleges are inspirational places to learn because education and training is
delivered by expert teaching staff in industry-standard facilities. From basic
skills to postgraduate degrees, colleges offer first rate academic and vocational
teaching, in a range of professions including engineering, hospitality, IT,
construction and the creative arts.
Sixth form colleges provide high-quality academic education to 16 to 18-yearolds enabling them to progress to university or higher level vocational education.
Submission
Consultation question 1a
Do you agree with our proposed approach to each of the areas outlined in the consultation
document?
AoC is supportive of the majority of the proposals in section 1 of the consultation
document. In answer to specific issues or concerns:
 We would be interested in discussing with officers the publication of data
related to higher and degree apprenticeships;

We would be supportive of including shorter placements and periods of
overseas study in a future KIS;

We would be pleased to be involved in further consultation on the criteria
for professional bodies’ eligibility and inclusion;

We are unsure if your intent is to remove the phrase – This does not reflect
on the quality of the course – on the Unistats website; and if so how you
intend to address this issue, captured in your research, that underpopulated KIS are construed by applicants that the course is ‘poor’?
Consultation question 1b
Do you have comments on any other areas of the data collection?
AoC has no further comments.
Consultation question 2a
Do you agree that continuing to aggregate data by subject and across two years is the
most appropriate approach given the purpose of publishing it?
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AoC agrees with this approach – with the significant caveat that it would ask
HEFCE to model this approach using the new HECoS subject coding system to
ascertain what impact the application of this coding system would have on course
KISs for college providers.
Consultation question 2b
Which approach to aggregation of NSS data do you favour us adopting in 2017? Provide a
rationale for your response.
AoC working principle for the aggregation of data has always been that any
aggregation approach should minimize the number of courses excluded and
information sets that are not fully populated, taking into account accepted
statistical rules and maintaining confidentiality. We also agree with HEFCE guiding
principle outlined in paragraph 64, page 11 of the consultation report that:
“combine[d] data should seek to reflect as closely as possible the experience of
students on the course for which the aggregated data is being published.”
In consequence, we are not able to ‘choose’ any of the three provided options
until we can see what impact each option would have on the number of colleges
NSS data that would be excluded by each option? We would ask HEFCE to
undertake this exercise.
Consultation question 3
Do you have any comments on the approaches we are exploring for presenting survey
data, for example the use of benchmarking?
AoC are keen to continue consulting on data presentation. We agree with the
conclusion in the paper that presenting confidence intervals would be confusing
to applicants; and note that applicants seem to understand sample size.
As a sector used to benchmarking we are not opposed to such an approach.
However, we believe that effective benchmarking needs to look at institutions that
are teaching similar students or teaching similar subjects in similar ways,
otherwise a considerably distorted picture could emerge. HEA research supports
this view.
We would welcome further discussion on this issue.
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