Report 99/66

December 1999

Performance Indicators in Higher Education in the UK: Tables of indicators

Note: Links to individual tables, as Excel files, follow each description. All tables may be downloaded together as a .zip file. (600K)

6. Tables of indicators

1. The following tables need to be interpreted with care. The introductions to each table explain what they are about, what population is covered, and any situations that may need special consideration.
2. General definitions of terms used in the tables are provided at Annex A. A brief explanation of adjusted sector benchmarks is given in paragraphs 67-70 of the main text, with more technical details in Annex B.
3. All the tables are based on students who are residents of England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland.
4. Standard deviations and significant differences are provided in some of the tables. Brief explanations are provided in the main text in paragraphs 72 and 73, with more technical details in Annex B. Technical details for Table T5 are in Annex C.
5. If the difference between the indicator and its benchmark is significant, the indicator has been marked with an asterisk. Significance is defined as at least three standard deviations and at least three percentage points. Significance is defined as at least three standard deviations and at least three percentage points. Any indicator which is not marked can be taken to be close to its benchmark.

Table T1 Participation of under-represented groups in higher education

1. Young full-time first degree entrants 1997-98
2. Young full-time undergraduate entrants 1997-98

1. This table provides three indicators giving the proportion of entrants to higher education who come from certain groups which are under-represented relative to the population as a whole. The indicators apply to young full-time undergraduates who entered the institution during the 1997-98 academic year. While the majority of entrants will be in the first year of a programme, there will be some who are in later years of the programme, perhaps because they have transferred from another HEI.
2. Young entrants are defined as those who were under 21 years of age on 30 September 1997.
3. The table gives the total number of full-time undergraduate entrants at each institution, together with the number and percentage of these who are young. The percentage of young entrants for whom the requisite data are available is given under ‘Percent with known data’. The indicator is then based only on the entrants for whom data are available. If there is a low percentage of students with known data, then the indicator may be misleading.
4. The three indicators are:
5. • percentage of entrants whose previous school was in the state sector
   • percentage of students whose parental occupation is non-skilled manual, semi-skilled, or unskilled (Social Classes IIIM to V)
   • percentage of students whose home postcode is for an area classed as low participation.

   (More detailed definitions are given in Annex A.)

6. Because school type and social class information is only available for entrants who have used UCAS, the coverage for these indicators is generally lower than for the low participation indicator. For some institutions, there is no information available on the social class and previous school type of their students, so the columns have been left blank. This is not a reflection on the institution, it simply reflects the way data have been collected.
7. The performance indicator (column headed ‘Percent from group’) can be set in context by looking at the next column, ‘Benchmark’. The adjusted sector benchmark makes allowance for the entry qualifications of, and subjects studied by, the students at an institution. It is the value that the whole UK sector would have if it had the same subject and entry qualification profile as the institution. (See paragraphs 67-70 in the main text for further explanation.) We have also included a measure of the variability of the indicator, the standard deviation, in the column ‘Std dev’.
8. The table is in two parts. Part (a) provides the performance indicators for entrants to first degree programmes of study only. Part (b) gives the same information, but for all undergraduate entrants, that is including students on HND, HNC, and similar courses, as well as first degree students.

Table T1 Participation of under-represented groups in higher education

a. Young full-time first degree entrants 1997-98

b. Young full-time undergraduate entrants 1997-98

Table T2 Participation of under-represented groups in higher education

1. Mature full-time undergraduate entrants 1997-98
2. Part-time undergraduate entrants 1997-98

1. This table provides an indicator of access to higher education for mature full-time, and all part-time, undergraduates who entered an institution during the 1997-98 academic year. While the majority of entrants will be in the first year of a course, there will be some who are in later years, possibly because they have transferred from another HEI, or have relevant prior experience.
2. Mature entrants are those who were 21 years of age or older on 30 September 1997.
3. Part (a) of the table provides the indicator, and related statistics, for mature full-time entrants, split between first degree entrants and all undergraduate entrants. Part (b) gives similar information for part-time entrants, split by young and mature.
4. The indicator used is the percentage of entrants who come from low participation neighbourhoods (see definitions in Annex A), and have no previous HE qualification. While this omits many mature students who are transferring directly from an HND course onto a degree course, such students would generally be picked up on entry to the HND, and omitting them at this stage prevents any double counting.
5. Table T2a gives the total number of entrants to full-time undergraduate courses, and how many of these, and what percentage, are mature. Table T2b gives the total number of part-time entrants, the number and percentage of these who are young, and the number and percentage who are mature. The percentage of these students for whom the requisite data are available is shown under ‘Percent with known data’. Alongside the indicator is the adjusted sector benchmark, with which it should generally be compared, and the standard deviation. (See paragraphs 67-70 for more details.)
6. A number of institutions in part (a) of the table have very few mature students for whom data are available, and in part (b) some have very few young students. Care should be taken in interpreting percentages in these cases. For a few institutions with particularly low numbers, the percentages have been omitted completely.
7. An asterisk indicates that the difference between the indicator and the adjusted sector benchmark is larger than would be expected.
8. The total of UK entrants in this table is slightly different from the total in Table T1, as the institutions included in each table differ.

Table T2 Participation of under-represented groups in higher education

a. Mature full-time undergraduate entrants 1997-98

b. Part-time undergraduate entrants 1997-98

Table T3 Non-continuation following year of entry to institution

Full-time first degree entrants 1996-97
Young full-time first degree entrants 1996-97
Mature full-time first degree entrants 1996-97

Full-time first degree entrants 1996-97

1. This table gives indicators to show how good an institution is at retaining the students it recruits. It is based on tracking students from the year they enter an institution to the following year, and provides information about where they are in that second year.
2. The table covers full-time first degree students who entered an institution in 1996-97. Details are given separately for young and mature students. Young students in turn are split between those from low participation neighbourhoods, and those from other neighbourhoods. Mature students are split between those with no previous HE qualifications, and those with previous HE qualifications. Part (a) of the table summarises the information for young and mature students; part (b) provides the information for young students, and part (c) provides the information for mature students.
3. Young students are defined as those who are under 21 years of age on 30 September 1996, mature students being 21 or over on the same date. Full definitions can be found in Annex A.
4. Each section of the table shows the number of entrants in that category, followed by three percentages:
5. • the percentage of students who are still at the institution in 1997-98 or have obtained a degree
   • the percentage who are at some other institution within the HE sector in 1997-98
   • the percentage who cannot be traced anywhere within the HE sector.
6. This last group are assumed to have left HE completely, and it is this percentage that forms the performance indicator.
7. As the table applies only to those students who are entering an institution to study full-time for a degree, there will not be many students who obtain a degree at the end of the first year. Those who do so will generally have transferred from a degree course at another HEI into the final year at their current institution. This percentage is not shown separately; it is combined with the percentage staying on at the institution. Any student who obtains a sub-degree qualification and is not found in an HE institution the following year is counted as ‘Not in HE’. (A student who returns after one year out will be picked up in the percentages provided in Table T4.)
8. As with the other indicators, the next column in the section provides an adjusted sector benchmark for comparison (see paragraphs 67-70 in the main text). In the tables in part (a), the standard deviation is also given, and any difference between the indicator and the adjusted sector benchmark that is bigger than expected is marked by an asterisk.
9. While the adjusted sector benchmark allows for differences in subject mix and entry qualifications, there will often be other factors which affect the non-continuation rates. In particular, the access indicators in Tables T1 and T2 should always be taken into account in looking at the non-continuation rates.
10. Note that the total columns may not be the sum of the separate sections. If a student’s postcode has not been fully supplied, then he or she cannot be allocated to either of the neighbourhood types, but will be included in the total. Similarly, if a birth date is either not available or not sensible, then a student will not be allocated to either the young or the mature group, but will be included in the total.

Table T3 Non-continuation following year of entry to institution

a. Full-time first degree entrants 1996-97

b. Young full-time first degree entrants 1996-97

c. Mature full-time first degree entrants 1996-97

Table T4 Resumption of study after year of inactivity

Full-time first degree entrants 1995-96

1. This table looks at students who entered a full-time first degree programme in 1995-96 and were then not found in any HE institution in 1996-97. It is based on much smaller numbers than the other tables, and the percentages given are therefore more liable to fluctuate from one year to the next. For this reason, we do not suggest using any of these figures as a performance indicator: they are provided as a context for the indicators in Table T3.
2. The table is split by age: young students are those who were under 21 on 30 September 1995; mature students were 21 or over on that date. Each section shows
3. • the number of full-time first degree entrants from 1995-96 who were absent from HE in 1996-97
   • the percentage returning to HE in 1997-98 at their original institution, and those gaining an undergraduate qualification other than a degree
   • the percentage returning to another institution
   • the percentage still not in HE in 1997-98.
4. Students who obtained a sub-degree qualification during 1995-96 and did not continue their studies are included in the first percentage.
5. The final column shows the numbers not returning to HE in 1997-98 as a percentage of the numbers who originally entered the institution in 1995-96.
6. No adjusted sector values have been included in this table.

Table T4 Resumption of study after year of inactivity

Full-time first degree entrants 1995-96

Table T5 Projected learning outcomes and efficiencies

Full-time students on first degree courses 1996-97

1. The previous tables, T3 and T4, rely on tracking students through the system from one year to the next. There are many different paths we could have investigated, many of which might eventually lead to qualification. In order to summarise all of these in one table, we considered the incidence of each of them over the academic years 1995-96, 1996-97, and 1997-98. We then looked at how students who started in 1996-97 would fare if they followed the same sorts of paths as those we had identified, over a sufficiently long period of time. This allowed us to project how many would graduate, transfer, leave, and so on, in the long run. These values are extrapolations, or projections, of current patterns, and provide the percentages which are given in this table.
2. Because of the different methods used for this table, we have also used a slightly different base population. Tables T1 to T4 are based on the number of entrants to an institution, defined by the commencement date of each student as supplied by the institution to HESA. For table T5 we have used the number of starters, identified according to their previous activity at the institution. More detailed definitions are given in Annex A.
3. Technical details of the method, together with the patterns of movement used, are given in Annex C, which also includes a simple example of the computations.
4. As with the other tables, only students who are residents of England, Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland are included in the table.
5. The first column shows the total number of full-time first degree students who started at each institution in 1996-97. Under projected outcomes, the percentages expected to obtain a degree, obtain a diploma or other sub-degree award, transfer to another institution, or neither transfer nor achieve an award are shown. The percentage for whom we cannot obtain an outcome are also shown under ‘Not known’. This last percentage is generally negligible, unless there has been a major change in the way the institution runs its courses, or if the institution is very small, see below.
6. The values of most interest as indicators are the percentage projected to obtain a degree, and the percentage projected to neither transfer nor obtain any qualification. The adjusted sector benchmarks for these percentages have been included, and should be interpreted as in the other tables. (See paragraphs 67-70 for fuller details.) The standard deviation has been included for the percentage projected to neither transfer nor qualify, with an asterisk to mark those institutions where the difference between the indicator and the benchmark is significant. We have omitted the standard deviation, and marked it with a double asterisk, if the profile of outcomes for the institution is markedly different from the profile of its benchmarks. In such cases no simple comparison can be made.
7. However, because this indicator is not split by age, those institutions which have a large proportion of mature students tend to have benchmarks which are too stringent, and for those with very small proportions of mature students the benchmarks may be over-tolerant. We have therefore included the proportion of starters who are mature as part of the context in which these benchmarks should be considered. Nationally, 27 per cent of starters are mature, and we suggest that institutions with more than 40 per cent of mature starters could be considered as having a large proportion of mature, while institutions with less than 15 per cent of mature students could be said to have a low proportion.
8. A number of institutions show a proportion of students whose projected outcome is ‘unknown’. A value of 1 per cent unknown would be fairly common with small institutions. However, there are a few institutions for whom the percentage unknown is larger, and this is mainly because of the nature of the data and the method of projection used. (Trinity College of Music, for example, has been removed from this table altogether, as the length of its courses have recently changed and so it is not possible to obtain its projected outcomes.) The projected outcomes for such institutions should be treated with caution. In addition, there are some institutions whose data contain anomalies that we have been unable to resolve. In particular, the figures for Glasgow Caledonian University have been given in the table, but because of such anomalies, and the high proportion of unknown outcomes, should not be relied on. Note that the percentage of students projected to obtain a degree at this institution is likely to be an under-estimate of the true figure.
9. Institutions which allow intercalated years of study at another institution may also produce anomalous results, particularly if students are out of the institution for more than one academic year. This will only be noticeable if such students form a large proportion of the total student body, for example at certain medical schools.
10. Because of the way we are using the projection technique, we can also see how long it would take each student to graduate, or to reach some other end point in their study. By taking these times together, we can work out the average time a student would take to graduate at each institution. We can also see how long this average ought to be if there were no repeat years, and if no students left without a qualification. These figures are given in the columns labelled ‘Actual’ and ‘Efficient’ in the table. We have then taken the ratio of the efficient time to the actual time as a proxy measure of efficiency. This value is shown in the next column. The adjusted sector value for efficiency is also included, along with an estimate of its standard deviation. If the profile of outcomes for the institution is markedly different from the profile of its benchmarks, the efficiency measure is not meaningful. As noted above, the standard deviations in such cases have also been omitted, and marked with a double asterisk.
11. This efficiency measure is dependent on a student’s year of programme. If this has been assigned in an anomalous way, the efficiency will be affected, as has occurred in a number of cases. The Loughborough College of Art and Design has significant numbers of students progressing from year of programme 1 to year 3, leading to an efficiency of more than 100%. Also, some institutions record the year of programme for medical students as if the pre-clinical and clinical parts of the course were separate. This can produce apparently short course lengths, leading to spurious efficiency measures. In these cases, the efficiency has not been shown.
12. Full details of the method used to obtain standard deviations for this table are included with the electronic version of the document.

Table T5 Projected learning outcomes and efficiencies

Full-time students on first degree courses 1996-97

Table R1 Research performance indicators 1997-98

1. This table provides four indicators of annual research output. They are not intended to replace the RAE, which is concerned with research quality and remains the most reliable indicator relating to research. The RAE results can be found on the RAE web-site, www.rae.ac.uk.
2. The indicators here look at numbers of PhDs awarded and amount of research grants and contracts obtained, relative to the academic staff costs of an institution, and to the funding council allocation for research to that institution. Each indicator is expressed as the proportion of output relative to the rest of the sector per proportion of input relative to the rest of the sector. To take account of the different patterns of input to output in different cost centres, the ratios are obtained for each cost centre, and then combined to give the single indicator.
3. The four indicators are:
4. • proportion of PhDs awarded per proportion of academic staff costs
   • proportion of PhDs awarded per proportion of funding council allocation for research
   • proportion of research grants and contracts obtained per proportion of academic staff costs
   • proportion of research grants and contracts obtained per proportion of funding council allocation for research.
5. A value of 1 for an indicator shows that the institution is producing the same as the rest of the sector, relative to its input. A value below 1 shows it is producing less than the sector, and a value greater than 1 shows that it is producing more than the sector, again relative to its input.
6. To put these indicators into context, the number of active cost centres under each input heading has been included. In addition, the amount of quality-rated (QR) research funding which an institution receives from the funding council has been included, along with the percentage that this forms of the total funding council allocation to that institution.
7. Note that research funding from bodies other than the funding councils has not been included in this table. For some institutions, this forms a large proportion of their research income.

Table R1 Research performance indicators 1997-98