Student Academic Experience Survey report shows what still drives student value, belonging, and attendance
Updated May 18, 2026
In May 2026, HEPI published its twentieth-anniversary Student Academic Experience Survey report, What Matters Most? 20 years of the student experience. Drawing on 206,512 undergraduate responses collected with Advance HE since 2006, the report argues that the basics of student voice have not changed as much as the sector sometimes assumes: teaching quality, in-person interaction, belonging, and useful feedback still do most of the work in shaping how students judge value. For Student Experience teams, PVCs, and quality professionals, that matters because it turns a broad student experience debate back into a practical evidence question. If attendance drops or value-for-money perceptions weaken, institutions need to know which parts of the academic experience students are actually struggling with.
What the Student Academic Experience Survey report has changed
This is not a new national survey or a change to NSS, PTES, or PRES methodology. The development is that HEPI has now brought together 20 years of Student Academic Experience Survey data into one longitudinal analysis. The report says the combined dataset contains 206,512 responses and focuses on four themes that have been measured consistently enough to compare over time: perception of value for money, satisfaction with the academic experience, expectations versus experience, and attendance. That gives the sector something more useful than another one-year snapshot. It provides a longer baseline for judging whether newer pressures such as the cost-of-living crisis, digital delivery, and student employment are changing what students say matters.
The report is also direct about what still drives the experience. It says teaching quality is the single most important driver of how students judge their course, and it ties stronger perceptions of value to helpful and supportive staff, clear explanations of expectations, good course organisation, and useful and timely feedback. It also says a strong sense of belonging and an inclusive campus are nearly as vital to students as teaching quality. That matters because it keeps feedback work grounded. If leaders want to improve student experience evidence, the report suggests they should start with course design, staff-student contact, feedback quality, and whether students feel part of a learning community, not with messaging alone.
"Teaching quality is the single most important driver in the student experience."
The attendance findings are the sharpest new signal for institutions that collect and act on student feedback. The report says the average gap between scheduled and attended teaching was just over one hour in 2006 and had risen to 2.4 hours by 2025. It also says the share of students attending all scheduled classes fell from 63 per cent in 2006 to 48 per cent in 2025. Among the 52 per cent of students who missed any teaching time in 2025, the average time missed was five hours a week, or roughly a third of average timetabled teaching time. The report links that shift to more flexible delivery after the pandemic, rising term-time employment, and more commuting. It also notes a slight drop in both perceived value for money and general satisfaction in 2025, suggesting that financial pressure is now part of the experience picture even when fees themselves are not the main explanatory variable.
What this means for institutions
The first implication is that value for money should not be read as a pricing story on its own. The report says students' perceptions of value remain closely tied to teaching quality, belonging, feedback, course organisation, and in-person contact. For universities, that means a weaker value-for-money signal is often telling you something operational about the course rather than simply expressing resentment about fees. Teams should therefore benchmark and triangulate survey evidence against module evaluations, local pulse work, representative feedback, and support data before deciding where the problem sits. That gives leaders a more defensible route from headline perception to practical change.
The second implication is that attendance now needs more context than it used to. A growing attendance gap does not automatically mean disengagement in the old sense. The report itself points to flexible digital delivery, paid work, and commuting as likely contributors. That means institutions should not rely on one attendance average and treat it as self-explanatory. They need to ask which students are missing teaching time, in which subjects, and whether the underlying issue is timetable design, travel, work patterns, inaccessible support, or something happening inside assessment and teaching. A stronger interpretation depends on combining behavioural signals with what students say about their experience, not on escalating attendance data in isolation.
The third implication is about timing and evidence quality. If more students are working through term or missing face-to-face sessions, annual surveys become even less sufficient on their own. Universities need earlier listening points that can surface whether the pressure is showing up in workload, support access, staff availability, or assessment design. They also need to pay attention to whose voices are missing when they interpret any survey trend. Our summary of non-response bias in student evaluations is relevant here, because changing attendance and work patterns can easily change who has time to respond to institutional surveys in the first place. The practical takeaway is simple: if the student experience is becoming more uneven, your evidence strategy has to get more joined up, not more fragmented.
How student feedback analysis connects
This is where open-text analysis becomes especially useful. A longitudinal survey can show that attendance is slipping, that value-for-money perceptions are under pressure, or that belonging still matters. It cannot, on its own, tell you whether students are describing unclear briefs, poor course organisation, inaccessible staff, inconsistent feedback, assessment bunching, or weaker peer connection. That explanation usually sits in comments. A consistent method for reading those comments lets institutions test whether the same issues are appearing across NSS, local surveys, PTES, PRES, module evaluations, and service routes, rather than treating each source as a separate story.
At Student Voice AI, we see the strongest practice when institutions analyse those comment streams with a reproducible method and a clear governance trail. Our NSS open-text analysis methodology is one practical starting point, and the student comment analysis governance checklist helps teams document who reviewed the evidence, how themes were defined, and how decisions followed. Student Voice Analytics is useful where teams need to do that at scale, but the broader lesson from this report is bigger than any one tool: if teaching quality, belonging, and feedback still drive the student experience, then comment-level evidence is one of the clearest ways to see where those drivers are holding up and where they are starting to fail.
FAQ
Q: What should institutions do now in response to this Student Academic Experience Survey report?
A: Review your current student experience evidence against the four themes the report keeps bringing back to the surface: teaching quality, feedback, belonging, and attendance. Check which local surveys, module evaluations, rep channels, and support datasets speak to each one, then decide where you still have blind spots. If the evidence is spread across teams, document who owns the first read and how the findings will be joined up before the next annual survey cycle.
Q: What is the timeline and scope of the Student Academic Experience Survey analysis?
A: The Student Academic Experience Survey began in 2006. The report says it expanded in 2012 to include third- and fourth-year undergraduates across all UK universities, and the new May 2026 analysis brings together 206,512 responses collected over the life of the survey. This is a UK-wide undergraduate evidence base. It is not a new regulatory requirement or a new annual survey instrument.
Q: What is the broader implication for student voice work?
A: The broader implication is that what students need has stayed more stable than the sector context around them. Universities may be dealing with AI, financial pressure, hybrid delivery, and more complex student circumstances, but students still judge their experience through teaching quality, useful feedback, connection, and whether they can participate fully. Student voice work is most useful when it helps institutions evidence those basics clearly and act on them quickly.
References
[HEPI]: "What Matters Most? 20 years of the student experience" Published: not stated
[HEPI]: "Rethinking the student academic experience for a digital era" Published: 2026-04-29
[Times Higher Education]: "Students missing twice as much teaching time as 20 years ago" Published: 2026-05-14
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