Case Summaries

The structure of the course allowed students to select individual modules and take breaks between them. The students complained that it had not been clear to them that some modules would run less frequently than others. They complained that the course was too theoretical and lacked practical elements that had been promised. The students also complained that students without a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) background would find the course very challenging. They raised concerns about the availability of staff, and the quality of teaching materials which contained factual errors. Assessments had also caused problems, with one exam being an hour shorter than it should have been and another using a question that had been used before and which some students had had access to as a revision aid.

The provider completed its review of the complaint after nine months. It accepted that there had been some errors in the course materials and issues with some assessments, which it was taking steps to address. It did not uphold most aspects of the students’ complaints.

The students complained to us. We upheld the students’ complaints (we decided they were Justified). The provider’s investigation had not directly addressed a number of the students’ concerns. In some places the investigator had relied on summary statements from departmental staff about the content of documents rather than reviewing the documents in full. The full documents included evidence that supported the students’ concerns. For example, the course validation documents included a comment from the external examiner that the course may be challenging for students with no STEM expertise. Some academic staff had complained that they felt unable to support the number of students being recruited to the course.

We recommended that the provider should undertake a quality review of the programme and that it should review its marketing materials to ensure that these are accurate. We also recommended that the students receive compensation, which varied according to the number of modules studied by each member of the group. We shared information about this complaint with the Office for Students under our information-sharing arrangements, having notified the provider that we would do so.