The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES)

About PTES

The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is the only UK higher education sector-wide survey to gain insight from taught postgraduate students about their learning and teaching experience.

PTES helps us better understand the experience of our students in key areas of: 

• Teaching and learning
• Engagement
• Assessment and feedback
• Organisation and management
• Skills development

We are committed to improving the PGT experience - and one of the most successful ways to do this is by listening to, and acting on, student feedback. The survey should only take ten minutes to complete; but the feedback you provide is invaluable to making sure that we are putting our efforts into improving the right things.

The survey will run from Monday 23 March until Monday 15 June 2020, and we would really appreciate you taking the time to complete the survey if you are eligible.  

Data Protection

The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is carried out by Advance HE on behalf of higher education providers including The University of Manchester.  Jisc (an organisation which provides IT and data support in the higher education sector) stores and transmits the survey data to Advance HE on The University’s behalf.  The University of Manchester is the Data Controller of your personal data and has legal responsibility to safeguard the information and ensure it is processed in accordance with data protection laws.

Data you provide in response to the PTES will be used by The University of Manchester for analysis, to improve our understanding of the postgraduate experience and inform decisions about our postgraduate provision.  All participating institutions have agreed not to identify any individuals when reporting their results both internally and externally, and to use their best efforts to ensure that no individuals can be identified by implication.  It is important that you follow the guidance within the survey itself to avoid including potentially identifiable information about yourself or others in your responses. Your personal data and survey responses will not be used for the purposes of identifying you or to make any decisions about you personally. You will not be identified in any publication by The University of Manchester which relates to the survey results.

The full dataset will be available to Advance HE in order to conduct national level research and analysis. Access to the raw data is restricted to the Division of Teaching, Learning and Student Development for analysis purposes. After that all staff within the institution have access to anonymised results. 

The legal basis for processing your data within the survey is your consent. There is no obligation or requirement for you to participate in the survey.  For more details on how The University of Manchester processes the personal data of its students generally and your rights under the data protection legislation please read our Student Privacy Notice.