Consultations

Student outcomes and teaching excellence

Last updated: 26 July 2022

Constructing student outcome and experience indicators for use in OfS regulation

Our proposals for regulating student outcomes and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) involve using detailed data and analytical evidence to inform our regulatory judgements.

This consultation sets out proposals for the construction, presentation and interpretation of the data comprising that evidence base, which will also be used in access and participation data dashboards.

Consultation outcomes:

Analysis of responses to the consultation and decisions

Read our analysis of responses

Analysis of responses to the consultation and decisions: Addendum

Addendum with outstanding decisions on publication matters and benchmarking

Consultation proposals:

Read the consultation

Read the consultation on constructing student outcome and experience indicators for use in OfS regulation.

Supporting information and data dashboards

We provided a range of supporting information with the consultation:

the data analysis which is referred to by some of our consultation proposals
interactive data dashboards which allow users to explore our data analysis
interactive data dashboards and data workbooks which illustrate the presentation of the student outcome and experience indicators we are proposing to publish each year
the data definitions that we apply to student-level data sets, and the statistical methods we use in the construction of our proposed indicators. These technical documents aim to help data and statistics practitioners understand our application of the proposed approach.

These resources related to our consultation proposals only. We have now published resources which reflect the consultation outcomes.

View the data dashboards

Supporting data analysis documents

Exploring student outcomes: the methodology behind the analysis

Comparison of completion measures

PDF, 915Kb

Supporting information to help comparison of the outcomes calculated by each of the two proposed completion methods

Review of selection and grouping of benchmarking factors

Supporting technical documents

Description and methodology

PDF, 1886Kb

Supporting information to help understand the definitions and approaches we have proposed in this consultation

Core algorithms

PDF, 2550Kb

A technical description of how the OfS constructs the indicators proposed in this consultation from student data returns

Subject code mappings for constructing indicators

XLSX, 188Kb

The OfS's subject code mappings used for this consultation

Instructions for rebuilding OfS datasets

PDF, 782Kb

How individualised student data can be used to rebuild the student outcome and experience indicators

Description of statistical methods

PDF, 1137Kb

Supporting information to help understand the range of statistical methods we have proposed to use in the presentation and contextualisation of the indicators

Published 20 January 2022
Last updated 07 October 2022 + show all updates

07 October 2022: Analysis of responses to the consultation and decisions: We have clarified the explanation of our proposed approach to the activities of 'caring for someone, retired, or taking time out to travel'. For the avoidance of doubt, we intended that students who report travelling, caring for someone else or retirement in any activity would count as a positive outcome. We have also clarified how each graduate is assigned to the most appropriate travel to work area for purposes of constructing geography of employment quintiles.
30 September 2022: Analysis of responses to data indicators consultation and decisions - Addendum on outstanding decisions published.
26 July 2022: Outcomes of the consultation have been published.
26 January 2022: Replaced 'Instructions for rebuilding datasets' document to correct position of box (paragraph 29); added link to Review of selection and grouping of benchmarking factors.

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