In Inghilterra infuria la polemica sul National Student Survey, una rilevazione dell’opinione degli studenti sulla qualità dei corsi universitari del tipo di quella che si fa anche in Italia. Il questionario adottato pone domande molto chiare e dirette: thestudentsurvey. Tuttavia la rilevazione è centralizzata dall’Agenzia di valutazione che ne userà i risultati per un ranking pubblico. Ciò determina pressioni sugli studenti per fare figurare bene la propria università, con il rischio di alterare la validità del test.

Una lettera al Times Higher Education ha sollevato il problema:

Why should anyone be surprised by the efforts at London Metropolitan
University to encourage students to provide good National Student
Survey ratings (“Probe ordered into ‘manipulation'” 28/2/08)? This is
just a rather unsubtle form of a widespread practice. Rumours have
been rife, for example, of similar and successful practices at an
institution at the other end of the UK.
Other practices, for example, include institutions adopting the NSS
questions in the first and second years as a means of identifying
issues that can be used to get better scores in the final year. This
is irrespective of, or at the price of, any real improvement in the
student learning experience. The concern is with league position,
despite the meaninglessness of the tables. Improvement is ignored in
most institutions, not least because the survey’s generic questions
suit no specific context, and the survey is a hopelessly inadequate
improvement tool.
(Lee Harvey, Birmingham.)