All talks

< back to list of all my talks.

Understanding student satisfaction and graduate outcomes in undergraduate maths degrees from analysis of public data

CETL-MSOR Conference 2024, University of Limerick (29/08/2024). With Keith Harris (speaker) and Daniel Kitson.

Abstract:
There is growing concern about the impact of market forces in recruitment to mathematical sciences degrees in the UK, as high-tariff programmes are expanding whilst lower-tariff programmes are struggling to attract students, which will lower the diversity of the future mathematics graduate population and potentially impact social mobility.
There is a wealth of public data available on higher education provision. These data are underutilised in terms of what we can learn about the relationships between different metrics. We are particularly interested in how different demographic and quality information interacts with student experience and graduate outcomes. We want to discover whether public data supports or challenges popular narratives around 'high quality' degrees, especially in relation to what students get out of higher education at different types of providers when certain input variables such as entry tariff are controlled for.
In this talk, we will present our findings from reviewing recent literature on this topic and using statistical techniques like regression, PCA and clustering to analyse the latest public data on undergraduate maths degrees. In particular, we will discuss the factors that are found to influence student satisfaction and graduate outcomes.