National Student Survey 2026: students share their views

Thanks to everyone who took part in this year’s NSS – the results have been published, and they show some really good news for the OU, with positivity up across all areas of the student experience. Nearly 54% of eligible OU students took part this year — that’s 14,966 students sharing their views.

What students told us

94% of students responded positively to how good teaching staff are at explaining things, up 1.2% on 2025.

90.9% of students responded positively about the teaching on their course, a 1.1% increase year on year and 2.8% higher than the sector average.

90.1% of students rated assessment and feedback positively, that’s 7.2% higher than the sector average, and almost a percent higher than our performance last year. This includes timely feedback that helps you improve your work, and clear and fair marking criteria. This is particularly pleasing as this is something we’ve been working on based on previous feedback.

91.5% of students rated the organisation of their course positively, an improvement of 1.5% on last year and 11.2% above the sector average. This places the OU fifth when compared with other universities.

IT resources and facilities were rated eighth when compared with other universities, with 92.5% of students responding positively — 5% higher than the sector average.

We also achieved strong results for overall satisfaction across the nations, ranking as the top university in Northern Ireland and Wales, and second in Scotland. England is not included in this measure.

How your feedback will help shape improvements

While it’s encouraging to see improvements across the survey, we need to do more. This includes giving you opportunities to share your views and see more clearly how we act on feedback, as well as improving how we share information about mental health support.

Look out for updates in the coming months – and don’t forget, we have lots of student voice activities happening all year round, do make sure you are signed up to our mailing list.