By Iben Skov Bertelsen, Study Service
Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication

In the coming weeks, AAU's students on ordinary programmes will be invited to answer The Danish Student Survey. The survey is published by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science, and the focus of the study is the students' academic and social well-being; including their experience of the learning environment, learning approaches, physical settings, loneliness, stress and abusive behaviour.

Replaces AAU's internal study environment survey

The survey was sent out for the first time in 2018, and since then the questionnaire in The Danish Student Survey has been continuously developed. Among other things, the Danish Centre for Educational Environment has developed questions for the teaching environment, which ensure that the educational institutions meet the requirements for educational environment assessments.

The ongoing development of the questionnaire has meant that in the end there was a large overlap between The Danish Study Environment Survey and AAU's own study environment survey. Prorector Anne Marie Kanstrup has therefore, in consultation with the Study Environment Council and the Strategic Education Council, decided that knowledge about students' experience of the study environment at AAU will now be obtained through The Danish Student Survey. This also means that AAU no longer conducts its own study environment survey as part of the semester evaluation.

Hope for high response rates

The Danish Student Survey provides AAU with important knowledge about how students thrive in the study and teaching environment at AAU. Among other things, three indicators in AAU's quality system are based on results from The Danish Student Survey. There is therefore a strong focus on The Danish Student Survey achieving high response rates at AAU.

- Therefore, we have asked the departments to schedule answers to the survey so that it takes place in connection with a teaching session. We hope that this will increase the response rate, so that we will have good data on which to develop our study environment, says Prorector Anne Marie Kanstrup.

The Danish Student Survey will also be marketed via info screens, on students.aau.dk and via AAU's Facebook page.

Relevant employees at AAU will have access to monitor the response rate to the individual programmes and semesters, while the survey is open for answers. 

The forward-looking process

The survey is open for the students' answers in the period 23 October to 28 November. They receive links to the survey both via e-Boks, AAU email and by text message.

When the results are ready, they will be available for further treatment in the study programmes. In addition, the Student Environment Council and the Strategic Education Council will be presented with the results at institutional, faculty and campus level.

Results at institutional, faculty and campus level in relation to the study environment area will also be collected in a report that will be published on AAU's website, where both students and staff can access the results.