Taught StudentSurvey.ie and PGR StudentSurvey.ie are designed to focus on student engagement, namely the amount of time and effort that students put into meaningful and purposeful educational activities, and the extent to which institutions provide such opportunities and encourage students to engage with them. The data collected reflects students’ self-reported perceptions of their experiences.
What is StudentSurvey.ie?
StudentSurvey.ie
StudentSurvey.ie (the Irish Survey of Student Engagement) asks students about their experiences of higher education, including their academic, personal and social development, and how their institutions provide opportunities and support for this development. There are two elements to StudentSurvey.ie:
- Taught StudentSurvey.ie for first year undergraduate, final year undergraduate, and taught postgraduate students. This survey has undergone a review and will resume in 2026. To date, approximately 370,000 students have taken part in taught StudentSurvey.ie.
- PGR StudentSurvey.ie for postgraduate research students. This survey ran most recently in 2025 and to date, 18,000 students have responded to this survey.
Participating students have created a large and valuable data set of their experiences of higher education.
Participating institutions and the national project team are very grateful for their time and contribution.
Why ask these questions?
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) Act 2022 mandates regular surveys of undergraduate and postgraduate students in cooperation with stakeholders. These surveys aim to document student engagement, identify challenges, and gather opinions on higher education practices and policies. The findings must be published in partnership with stakeholders, ensuring compliance with data protection regulations.
PGR StudentSurvey.ie
The survey for postgraduate research students (Masters by Research and PhD) opens every second year during February – March for a three-week fieldwork period that is also specific to each institution. This survey was first run in 2018 and is now on a biennial survey cycle, with the most recent survey having taken place in 2025. The questions have been designed to match the experiences of research students and have been pre-tested with groups of research students in several institutions. Approximately 18,000 postgraduate research students have taken part to date. The PGR StudentSurvey uses the Advance-HE PRES survey as its basis.
Why do we run these surveys?
The main reason for the surveys is to provide benefits to each institution and its students by helping to improve feedback and appropriate follow up action. The objectives of StudentSurvey.ie are:
- To increase transparency in relation to the student experience of and engagement with higher education.
- To enable direct student input in expressing their experience and engagement with their higher education institution.
- To facilitate higher education institutions’ efforts to reflect that engagement and those experiences in their policy and practice in an impactful way.
- To help institutions identify areas of strength in how students engage, so they can continue and strengthen these practices.
- To help institutions identify areas requiring further development or improvement in how students engage so they can respond.
- To serve as a guide for continual enhancement of institutions’ teaching and learning and student engagement.
- To facilitate comparison with other higher education systems nationally, sectorally and internationally.
How are the surveys managed?
The StudentSurvey.ie initiative is managed as a collaborative partnership. It is co-sponsored by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), institutions’ representative bodies (the Irish Universities Association, IUA, and the Technological Universities Association, TUA) and AMLÉ (Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn) formerly the Union of Students in Ireland (USI).
The partnership approach in place is an important feature of the project. Working groups consisting of institutions’ and students’ representatives manage the national project. A project team supports the working groups and reports to the co-sponsoring organisations. An external third party company provides the online survey system to the national partnership.
Governance and management structures for StudentSurvey.ie have been designed to ensure wide representation of participating higher education institutions and other partners. The StudentSurvey.ie Steering Group consists of representatives from universities, the technological sector Quality and Qualifications Ireland and the project co-sponsors (HEA, IUA, TUA, AMLÉ). Representative bodies are periodically offered the opportunity to refresh group membership and not all participating institutions are members of the group.
All queries are very welcome and should be directed to info@studentsurvey.ie.
