Does teaching qualification matter in higher education in the UK? An analysis of National Student Survey data

Graphical abstract


Resource availability
The data is available in the article

Method details
Student evaluation has become a key metric by which administrators evaluate the teaching quality of the faculty they oversee [1][2][3][4]. A higher rating on student satisfaction is positively correlated with the students' grades in those courses [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The data were collected from various sources: National Student Survey (NSS), the Higher Education Academy (HEA), and the Russell Group (UK). The Russell Group comprises 24 world-class, research-intensive universities. The member universities of the Russell Group have significant social, economic and cultural impacts nationally and globally. For example, most of the world-class research is produced by the Russell Group universities in the UK and their economic output is more than £32 billion per year. According to the Russell Group, "They are unique institutions, each with their own history and ethos, but they share some distinguishing characteristics. They are committed to maintaining the very best research, an outstanding teaching and learning experience and unrivalled links with local and national business and the public sector" (https://russellgroup.ac.uk/).

National Student Survey (NSS)
The National Student Survey (NSS) in the UK gathers students' opinions on the quality of their courses to ensure public accountability. Because this survey is based on student experience, the results (published on the Unistats websitehttps://unistats.ac.uk) inform prospective students, thereby assisting them in selecting institutions to attend. The NSS respondents are mainly final-year undergraduates studying for higher education qualifications at UK higher education providers and at further education colleges in England, Northern Ireland and Wales. The NSS includes the following areas: A Teaching and learning B Assessment and feedback C Academic support D Organization and management E Learning resources F Personal development G Overall satisfaction To date, the NSS has helped over two million students make their voices heard and has helped to bring about significant and positive change in higher education in the UK. In 2018, the NSS results cover the views of 320,000 students [14]. The overall satisfaction in 2018 is 83%, compared with 84% in 2017 [14].

The Higher Education Academy (HEA)
The Higher Education Academy (HEA) is the national body in the UK for championing teaching excellence and wider student learning experience. The HEA works with governments, ministries, universities and individual academics in the UK and around the globe. The members of the HEA are Universities UK (UUK) and GuildHE (https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/).
As a teaching qualification in higher education, the HEA Fellowship demonstrates a personal and institutional commitment to professionalism in learning and teaching. As of 2018, there are around 108,000 fellows of the HEA. The following four categories of fellowships recognize the practice, impact and leadership of individuals' teaching and learning: The Fellowship is awarded based on evidence of personal professional practice that meets the requirements of one of the four Descriptors of the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) (https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ukpsf). Table 1 shows the sample of the study (n = 121). The study includes 19 Russell Group and 102 Non-Russell Group universities. Student satisfaction ranges from 74% to 95% in higher education institutions in UK. The percentage of faculty with HEA qualification in universities ranges from 0% to 94%. The percentage of faculty with total teaching qualification (including HEA qualification and other teaching qualifications) ranges from 3% to 90%. The number of staff in the universities ranges from 25 to 4065.

Sample
The full-time student satisfaction percentage in 2015 was higher for the three regions (England, Scotland and Northern Ireland) than Wales (see Fig. 1). Fig. 2 presents that the part-time student satisfaction percentage in 2015 was the lowest in Scotland (85%) in 2015. Fig. 3 shows that all of the nine universities with the highest percentages of teachers having total teaching qualifications were

Experimental design
To achieve the objective of the data article, the study has developed the following hypothesis under three models (Russell Group and Non-Russell Group): Model I: Where, m 1 : mean of Teaching qualification held; m 2 : mean of Teaching qualification held, R (Russell-Group); Difference: m 1 À m 2 Model II: Null hypothesis : H 0 : m 1 À m 2 ¼ 0 Alternative hypothesis : H 1 : m 1 À m 2 6 ¼ 0 Where, m 1 : mean of R-Overseas accreditation or qualification (Russell-Group); m 2 : mean of Overseas accreditation or qualification; Difference: m 1 À m 2 Model III: Null hypothesis : H 0 : m 1 À m 2 ¼ 0 Alternative hypothesis : H 1 : m 1 À m 2 6 ¼ 0   Where, m 1 : mean of Other UK accreditation or qualification; m 2 : mean of R Other UK accreditation or qualification; Difference: m 1 À m 2 As presented in Table 2, Model I shows that the mean proportion of staff holding a Teaching Qualification is 0.357 for Russell Group universities and 0.505 for Non-Russell Group universities. Model II shows that the mean proportion of staff holding a Teaching Qualification (Overseas accreditation or qualification for any level of teaching) is 0.079 for Russell Group universities and 0.037 for Non-Russell Group universities. Model III shows that the mean proportion of staff holding a  Teaching Qualification (Other UK accreditation or qualification in teaching in higher education) is 0.076 for Russell Group universities and 0.047 for Non-Russell Group universities. The standard deviation of Model I is higher than Model II and Model III.
Regarding the Estimation for Difference (see Table 3), the confidence interval at 95% is: À0.056  Table 4 presents the results of the t-test. T-Test is applied to measure the difference of teaching Qualification held between Russell Group and Non-Russell Group Universities. Model I contain t value is 3.34, df is 23 and p < .05 (p = 0.003), and therefore the null hypothesis is rejected. Model II contain t value is 2.99, df is 18 and p < .05 (p = 0.008), and therefore the null hypothesis is rejected. Model III contain t value is À1.94, df is 17 and p > .05 (p = 0.069), and therefore the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. Figs. 5-7 show the individual Value Plots for Russell Group and Non-Russell Group. The results of the t-test show that overall Teaching Qualification (Overseas accreditation or qualification for any level of teaching) are significantly different between Russell Group and Non-Russell Group. But Teaching Qualification (Other UK accreditation or qualification in teaching in higher education) for Russell Group and Non-Russell Group are not significantly different.
Regarding the comparison between teaching qualification and student satisfaction, Fig. 8 presents the Student satisfaction for Russell Group and Non-Russell Group universities. The mean Student satisfaction for Russell Group is 87%, while for Non-Russell Group it is 85.48%. Fig. 9 shows that HEA Teaching qualification is associated with higher student satisfaction.      As presented in Table 5, Pearson Correlation shows that there was a positive correlation between HEA Qualification and Teaching Qualification, which was statistically significant (r = 0.242, n = 121, p = .008). This means that most of the qualified teachers were HEA qualified.
Finally, Table 6 shows the results of regression analysis for students' satisfaction. It is evident from the results that model fits the data well (p < .05) and there is a strong positive relationship between dependent variables and independent variables. The independent variables of the model explain 34%   of the variations in the dependent variable. The variables when compared on individual basis, only faculties with HEA qualification variable is significant (p < .05). This reveals that faculties with HEA qualification in universities is positively associated with student satisfaction.

Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.