Methodology Used for Guardian University Rankings
To prepare the Guardian University Rankings, eight performance metrics are used to cover the entire student lifecycle. The universities are assessed against these metrics and then scored out of 100. The Guardian focuses on the entire student experience rather than only academic research. The rankings are compiled after obtaining information from first-degree and full-time students only. The previous editions used overall course satisfaction as one of the metrics, which has now been discontinued.
Some of the parameters used to compile the Guardian University Rankings are:
Entry standards:
This looks at the average grades of students who are most likely going to join the university’s department. This parameter is not simply the eligibility criteria required but gives an estimate of the average scores prospective students must have. It also includes average tariffs and contributes 15% to the department's total score (24% in the case of medical subjects).
Expenditure per student:
This approximates the resource levels that students may anticipate. The total expenditure for each subject area is divided by the student volume in the same. Academic staff costs are not included in the calculation. The metric is expressed in the form of points out of ten while contributing 5% to the overall score of departments (10% for medical subjects).
Student-staff ratios:
This is obtained by dividing the number of students taking a subject by the staff numbers available for teaching the same. A lower ratio is positively perceived. This parameter contributes 15% to the department score in total (24% for medical subjects).
Continuation:
This takes first-year students into account on full-time degrees that are slated to take more than a year for completion and then evaluates if the proportion is still active in the next academic year’s first of December. This measure indicates if students are receiving adequate support to continue their studies. It is positively viewed, and the index score contributes a total of 15% to the overall score (10% for medical subjects).
Student satisfaction:
This is worked out on the basis of several questions that are asked to final-year students about their departments and the type of support they received throughout their studies. Their responses are then used to calculate the satisfaction rate, and 10% weighting is given for average responses (16% for medical subjects). This primarily comprises:
- Satisfaction with teaching quality: For this parameter, the responses from the NSS Survey 2022 are taken to understand how students feel about the level of teaching at their institution.
- Satisfaction with feedback: This primarily assesses how students feel about the feedback given to them by the faculty, such as if they consider it to be fair and timely.
Value-added scores:
This helps assess the probability of support for students from their departments towards getting superior grades. To determine this, pupils are tracked from their enrollment to graduation, and the support they received during this period is analyzed. The parameter is expressed in the form of points out of 10 and contributes a total of 15% to the score. It is not used for medical subjects.
Career prospects:
This parameter examines how successful students have been in starting their careers in the first 15 months after graduation, with expectations of the same patterns in the future. This accounts for 15% of the overall score for non-medical subjects.
Here are some other aspects related to how these metrics are used:
- It is first assessed whether departments have sufficient data for supporting rankings.
- Institutions may only be added to the table if the weighting values of indicators that are missing add up to around 40% or lower and if the department of the institution caters to a minimum of 35 first-degree and full-time students.
- For institutions eligible to be added to the table, every score is compared to the average score that the other qualifying institutions achieve. Standard deviations are leveraged for normalizing scores.
- Institutional tables provided by the Guardian rank universities/colleges based on subject table performance while taking additional aspects into account for overall performance calculation. For instance, the number of students in any department influences the contribution of the department’s standardized total score to the overall score of the institution. Moreover, the number of institutions in the table also influences the extent to which any department may influence the institutional score.
- The count of undergraduate full-timers in each subject is shown as a percentage figure of the total full-time undergraduate students in subjects for which the university/college has a place in the subject tally.
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