What do Media Studies students say about teaching delivery?
Published May 22, 2024 · Updated Oct 12, 2025
delivery of teachingmedia studiesStudents report broadly positive but uneven experiences of teaching delivery: across the Delivery of teaching lens in the National Student Survey (NSS, the UK-wide survey of final-year undergraduates) 60.2% of comments read as positive, while in Media Studies the tone is more mixed at 54.2% positive. The sharpest divide is by mode of study, with full-time students registering a sentiment index of +27.3 compared with +7.2 for part-time learners. Within Media Studies, the specific ‘delivery of teaching’ topic sits moderately positive at +8.9. In practice, students value approachable staff and flexible access, but they expect stronger parity for those balancing study with work or caring, and better support for practical work in hybrid settings. Delivery of teaching is a sector-wide benchmark for how sessions land and resources are paced, while the Common Aggregation Hierarchy that groups Media Studies shows discipline-level patterns that help departments prioritise action.
What shapes Media Studies students' experience of teaching delivery?
Media Studies blends analysis with production, so delivery must support both conceptual understanding and hands-on practice. Listening to student voice through surveys and module evaluations helps teams align methods to cohorts’ needs. Teaching staff increasingly use text analytics to review comments, diagnose friction points in timetabling, assessment briefings and resource access, and adjust delivery so students can act on feedback within the module rather than after it.
How did online learning during COVID-19 affect Media Studies?
The rapid move online disrupted studio work and informal collaboration, while preserving continuity of lectures and seminars. Students valued flexibility but questioned how far virtual formats could replicate tactile, team-based production. Providers responded with digital tools, live briefs and remote workflows, which mitigated disruption for some cohorts but left gaps in industry readiness where access to spaces, kit and peer interaction proved hard to replace.
How do students describe the online learning experience?
Flexibility and on-demand materials reduce stress for many, yet students miss spontaneous creative exchange and immediate, in-person feedback. Digital resources help, but they do not fully replace workshops and studio time. Students ask for predictable schedules, consistent platforms and recordings that make catch-up viable, especially when caring or work commitments intersect with live sessions.
What access and technical barriers limit learning?
Connectivity issues, unequal access to professional software and hardware, and variable digital fluency among staff constrain engagement. These barriers hit part-time and commuter students hardest, reinforcing the sector pattern that delivery feels less supportive for those outside the standard full-time rhythm. Departments that standardise platforms, provide loan schemes and publish clear “what to do next” steps after each session reduce friction and improve continuity of learning.
How strong is the quality of teaching and material delivery?
Where modules integrate theory with practical digital applications and provide timely staff access, students report better outcomes and confidence. Staff reputation and approachability underpin positive experiences, but inconsistency across modules weakens overall delivery. A structured approach helps: standard slide templates and terminology, short formative checks during sessions, and micro-exemplars of high-performing activities that colleagues can adapt.
How do we enhance practical skills and industry preparedness?
Students need practice that resembles professional workflows. Departments prioritise live projects with media partners, iterative production cycles, and critique that links explicitly to learning outcomes and marking criteria. Hybrid designs work when practical workshops on campus align with asynchronous pre-work and concise post-session debriefs that help students apply feedback in the next task.
How can communication and feedback accelerate learning?
Iterative work benefits from quick, actionable feedback. Providers that use checklists, annotated exemplars and short “what we look for” videos make standards legible. Predictable turnaround times and a single, reliable channel for announcements protect the operational rhythm and reduce anxiety. Students respond well when staff availability is visible and response norms are clear.
What teaching strategies should programmes prioritise next?
- Close the part-time delivery gap with parity of materials: reliable recordings, concise summaries and accessible assessment briefings released promptly.
- Support mature learners with brief refreshers at the start of topics, concrete examples before abstraction, and explicit signposting to next steps.
- Standardise delivery to reduce cognitive load: step-by-step worked examples, pacing breaks, and a light-touch rubric for structure, clarity, pacing and interaction.
- Make curriculum and assessment visible: topic maps and “how this will be assessed” flags at module level; align feedback to criteria students can recognise.
How Student Voice Analytics helps you
- Track student sentiment on delivery over time and compare like-for-like across schools, programmes and cohorts.
- Benchmark Media Studies against peer subjects and the wider delivery of teaching picture, with drill-downs by mode, age and site.
- Surface concise, anonymised summaries and export-ready insights that programme teams can act on quickly.
- Run pulse checks after key teaching blocks and monitor how actions shift sentiment, supporting NSS and TEF evidence with granular, discipline-level analysis.
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