Key National Surveys

There are three ongoing key national surveys of graduates from Australian Higher Educational institutions:

The three surveys are coordinated by the Graduate Careers Council of Australia (GCCA) and the Australian Universities via the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee (AVCC). All surveys use standard survey methodology. Responses from graduates are coded according to standard coding instructions issued by the GCCA, and then forwarded to the GCCA office in Melbourne for computer processing and compilation.

All three surveys are now conducted annually. For example the 2003 GDS includes information relating to all persons who completed the requirements for a qualification in 2002.

• GDS/CEQ to graduates, and
• GDS/PREQ to research postgraduates.

The GDS aims to provide information on the type of work, further study or other activity that graduates have been involved in approximately four months after the completion of their course. The GDS provides a national performance indicator of Graduate Employment and is a major source of comparative data on the nature and type of employment of graduates. This national survey has been coordinated by the GCCA since 1972.

The survey population comprises the people who have completed the requirements for the award of a:

• two-year associate diploma or undergraduate certificate
• bachelor degree or three-year diploma
• postgraduate diploma or graduate certificate
• higher degree

The GDS is a three-page questionnaire with the following sections.

1. Course of Study Completed
2. Paid Work in Final Year of Study
3. Paid Work Following Graduation
4. Main Paid Work
5. Job Search Methods
6. Further Study

The data from these surveys are entered into a national database and used by:

• Universities:
  • to evaluate their programs;
  • to improve the quality of their courses and services;
  • in their strategic planning;
• Career Advisers to help students make informed career and study choices;
• Employers in developing recruitment policies and programs.

The Graduate Careers Council of Australia (GCCA) uses GDS data to document the changes in the starting salaries of graduates from Australian universities.

For further information on the Graduate Careers Council of Australia, visit the GCCA website

The GDS is the source of data for the University key performance indicator (KPI), Graduate Employment, defined as follows:

Graduate Employment is the number of Bachelor Pass and Honours graduates working in the mode of their choice as a percentage of the total numbers of graduates seeking work. The modes are either full time or part time. The source of the data is the Graduate Destination Survey.

All University GDS data is available to staff via COGNOS, the ECU Information Service (ECU-IS) management information system. It permits in-depth interrogation of the ECU GDS data by course and or Faculty/School as required.

For results of previous surveys and information about graduate employment, visit the GradsOnline website

The GDS aims to provide information on graduates' perceptions of their courses and teaching staff. The CEQ provides a national performance indicator of the quality of teaching and is a major source of comparative data on student satisfaction with the overall course experience. This national survey has been coordinated by the GCCA since 1993.

The survey population comprises the people who have completed the requirements for the award of a:

• two-year associate diploma or undergraduate certificate
• bachelor degree or three-year diploma
• postgraduate diploma or graduate certificate
• coursework masters degree

The CEQ is a one-page questionnaire comprising:

• a set of items that use the standard five-point Likert agreement scale:
  NA - not applicable
  SD - strongly disagree
     D - disagree
     N - neither agree nor disagree
     A - agree
  SA - strongly agree
• two open-ended questions inviting written feedback from the student.
  1. What were the best aspects of your course?
  2. What aspects of your course are most in need of improvement?

Each Australian University now tailors the CEQ to meet its own requirements by including three compulsory core scales, Overall Satisfaction , Good Teaching and Generic Skills, together with a selection from eight optional scales. The items on the one-page questionnaire are not grouped by scale but appear in a specified order, without any reference to the CEQ scales they represent. The overall satisfaction item (Overall, I was satisfied …) is the last item on the questionnaire.

Edith Cowan's CEQ now uses the scales shown in the following table.

For each CEQ scale, scores are reported either as a:

• percentage broad agreement: the percentage (%) of applicable responses that are either neither agree nor disagree , agree or strongly agree ; or a
• mean: the average, calculated after recoding the responses strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree and strongly agree to –100, –50, 0, 50, and 100 respectively.

Mean scores range from −100 to 100 while percentages range from 0 to 100. A negative mean indicates that graduates predominantly disagree with the corresponding statement (or statements) while a positive mean indicates predominant agreement, the larger the score the better.

The CEQ is the source of data for the University key performance indicators (KPI), Course Satisfaction, defined as:

Course Satisfaction is defined as the percentage of Bachelor Pass students who "broadly agree" with the overall satisfaction statement from the Annual Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ). “Broadly agree” equates to selection 3, 4 or 5 on a five-point Likert scale. The satisfaction statement is currently the last question on the CEQ.

and Quality of Teaching, defined as:

Quality of Teaching is defined as the mean of response to Items 3, 7, 15, 17, 18 and 20 (Good Teaching) from the annual Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), run as a national survey by the Graduate Careers Council of Australia.

As with the GDS, all University CEQ data is available to staff via COGNOS, the ECU Information Service (ECU-IS) management information system. It permits in-depth interrogation of the ECU CEQ data by course and or Faculty/School as required.

Where only a single CEQ scale is used, it is usually the:

• Overall Satisfaction Index (OSI);

and where two CEQ scale are used, they is usually the:

• Good Teaching Scale (GTS); and the
• Overall Satisfaction Index (OSI).

CEQ data are used to monitor and review teaching and learning outcomes of the University, its faculties and schools. When reviewing outcomes, we make comparisons to identify strengths and weaknesses. S ources of weakness identify opportunities for improvement. However, care needs to be exercised when making comparisons to compare like with like, for example, by comparing the same administrative unit over time, or by comparing equivalent fields of study at the same time.

Note that the GCCA, in its Guidelines for the Interpretation of Survey Data, cautions against making simplistic inter-institutional comparisons as follows.

The GDS, CEQ and PREQ data are not suitable for making simplistic (i.e. unqualified) inter-institutional comparisons. Institutions can have vastly different histories, missions, geographic/socio-economic situations, enrolment profiles (including high percentages of mature-aged, part-time or pre-employed graduates) and course mixes. If comparisons are made across apparently comparable institutions, care should be exercised. Aggregations beyond the field of study level (for example, to total university level) need to be interpreted with caution.

Comparative CEQ data is best obtained using the CEQ comparative tool. Note that, when using this, the area of study is an ECU-specific grouping of official DEST Fields of Education.

2003 Review Report of CEQ Data - 3 August 2004

The annual University report of CEQ data reviews data from the:

• two ECU KPIs, Course Satisfaction and Quality of Teaching, for which the CEQ is the source; and the
• four ECU CEQ scale scores, Overall Satisfaction, Good Teaching, Generic Skills and Graduate Qualities;

for the University, its faculties and schools.

Click here to access the latest University report of CEQ data

Comparative CEQ is an ingredient in the University's T&L Quality Index. This index is used to allocate a University Teaching Performance budget pool to schools identified for the quality of their teaching and learning outcomes. Currently, the CEQ Good Teaching Scale (GTS) and Overall Satisfaction Index (OSI) mean values, from the dominant field of study in the School and each benchmarked against the same field of study nationally, are equally-weighted to form one-third of the T&L Quality Index.

The PREQ aims to provide information, not otherwise available on a national basis, on postgraduates' perceptions of their educational experiences in higher degree research degree courses. This national survey has been coordinated by the GCCA since 1999.

The survey population comprises the postgraduates who have completed the requirements for a research-based higher degree, specifically a:

• research-based masters degree
• PhD

The survey populations for the PREQ and the CEQ are mutually exclusive. All graduates in the survey population are sent the GDS, and either the CEQ or the PREQ.

The PREQ is a is a 28-item questionnaire comprising:

• a set of positively worded core items that use the standard five-point Likert agreement scale:
  NA - not applicable
  SD - strongly disagree
  D - disagree
  N - neither agree nor disagree
  A - agree
  SA - strongly agree
• two open-ended questions inviting written feedback from the student.
  1. What were the best aspects of the degree?
  2. What aspects of the degree were most in need of improvement?

The PREQ core items are grouped to produce the following seven PREQ scales, each representing an underlying aspect of the postgraduate research experience.

The PREQ survey is based on the theory that perceptions of these aspects are key factors influencing students’ approach to learning and the quality of the outcomes of that learning.

The national rounds of the PREQ survey conducted from 1999 are as indicated below. The absence of a PREQ2001 was the result of a special survey period to align the PREQ with that of the GDS and CEQ. Note that PREQ2003 is the survey conducted in 2003 collecting data from postgraduates who completed their higher degree in the 2002 calendar year.

The PREQ Surveys

For each of the first three PREQ rounds, GCCA forwarded the file of raw PREQ data to all Universities. Edith Cowan University reports on each survey, mapping the overall patterns of the ECU postgraduate research experience, are available as:

• PREQ Report 1999
• PREQ Report 2000
• PREQ Report 2002

For each PREQ scale, scale scores are reported as follows.

• Mean score: an average, calculated after recoding the student responses strongly disagree , disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree and strongly agree to -100, -50, 0, 50, and 100 respectively, as with the CEQ and the UTEI.
• Percentage agreement: the percentage of applicable responses that are either (agree) or (strongly agree), as with the CEQ and the UTEI.

The small PREQ survey population, the postgraduates who have completed the requirements for a research-based higher degree, means that the number of PREQ respondents each year is small. This means that all PREQ results needs to be interpreted with caution.