Tag Habitus

Satisfied? Student Surveys, Social Position, and the Limits of Experience Data

Editorial illustration in muted blue-grey tones of a large ticked survey form, with one confident student at a desk and another uncertain student standing apart, set against a university building.

The National Student Survey ranks institutions, shapes league tables, and features in marketing materials as evidence of teaching excellence. But satisfaction is not the same as learning, and the social position of the student completing the survey shapes what they report in ways the instrument cannot detect. This article applies a Bourdieusian lens to the NSS — and finds that the data is telling us something rather different from what it is used to claim.