The tables that make up the Guardian Postgraduate Guide summarise nine key pieces of information about taught postgraduate courses at UK universities.
Some of these categories have value judgments associated with them (completion rates, for instance), while others are simply for interest (such as the proportion of overseas students).
We don’t rank universities for their postgraduate provision, or provide an overall league table for such courses.
However our undergraduate Guardian University Guide, which comes out each May, has an aggregate teaching score for undergrad courses in each department, ranks these in subject tables, and provides an overall league table.
Here are the nine statistical measures used in the postgraduate tables:
1. Number of full-time students, and
2. Number of part-time students
These figures simply show the number of full-time and part-time students taking a course, and illustrate the size of the department and the mode of study options it provides.
Distance learners are included in the part-time figure, and all numbers are headcounts of taught postgraduates from the 2012-13 academic year, the latest for which data is available.
3. Students from outside UK
This measure shows the proportion of postgraduates studying in 2012-13 whose permanent home was outside of the UK.
So the statistic includes both EU and non-EU students, but excludes foreign students who lived in the UK before starting their studies.
Part-time and full-time students are both included in the figures, but it should be remembered that relatively few students from outside the EU study part time.
4. Expenditure per student
The amount of money that an institution spends providing a subject (not including the costs of academic staff, since these are already counted in the student-staff ratio) is divided by the volume of students learning the subject to derive this measure – which applies to all students and not just postgraduates.
Added to this figure is the amount of money the institution has spent on academic services over the last two years, including library and computing facilities, divided by the volume of students enrolled at the university in each of those two years.
At least 25 FTE (full-time equivalent) students must be counted in the calculation for it to be accepted and year-on-year inconsistency or extreme values can also cause results to be considered non-credible.
Points are assigned to the expenditure-per-student values according to how that value compares with the average for the subject, given the standard deviation of average expenditures in that subject.
5. Student-staff ratios
SSRs compare the number of staff teaching a subject with the number of students studying it (at all levels), to get a ratio. A low SSR is regarded positively.
At least 25 students and two staff (both FTE) must be present in an SSR calculation. Year-on-year inconsistency and extreme values at either end of the spectrum cause several SSRs to be considered non-credible.
6. Full-time completion rate
This statistic refers to the population of full-time postgraduate students (not including those aiming for institutional postgraduate credits or “no formal postgraduate qualification”) who either completed their qualification in 2012-13 or who were in the standard registration population and had a leaving date within that year.
This will include students who completed after writing up their dissertation in 2012-13, having received the taught element of their course in the previous year.
Such students, as well as students who fail to complete after a period of dormancy, are counted in the calculation of completion rates but not in the full-time and part-time “volume of provision” fields.
Once the population is defined, a comparison between the students’ qualification aim and any qualification awarded determines the leaving status of the student.
Students who are awarded the qualification they sought are treated positively along with students who were awarded a similar or superior qualification to the one they were aiming for. Students leaving with a lesser award or no qualification at all are treated negatively.
Some extreme values have been excluded after failing validation tests.
7. Part-time completion rate
This statistic is identical to the full-time completion rate but for part-time students only.
The greater flexibility of part-time modes of study often results in lower or slower completion rates, so combining FT and PT rates would be likely to penalise unfairly departments that predominantly offer part-time courses.
8. Tuition fees for home students, and
9. Tuition fees for international students
Unless the notes state otherwise, the tuition fees shown here will apply to students starting courses in 2015-16. Some departments have only been able to provide the fees they charged starters in 2014-15 and these should only be used as an estimate of what the course would cost to starters in 2015-16.
The fees generally refer to full-time master’s courses and you can expect to pay less for part-time courses and postgraduate diplomas and certificates.
Information was supplied by the institutions that responded to our annual fee survey and we did not seek to include bursaries and discounts that many students will be eligible for - please refer to institution websites for such details and to double check that the fee information provided here remains current.
Thresholds for inclusion
Each institution had to meet two criteria to be included in a subject table:
• First, at least 25 postgraduate students (headcount of FT and PT) must have been assigned to the subject. The process for students being assigned to subjects uses a mapping of JACS codes, which institutions have the opportunity to tailor to reflect their own boundaries of provision.
• Second, the cost centre that has been assigned to the institution’s department had to contain at least 25 FTE students. Again, universities and colleges can control which cost centre is used.
Intelligent Metrix is an independent consultancy specialising in measures of higher education performance and activity
