Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey

Postgraduate students can tell us what they think say about their course so we can understand what they value and where we can make improvements.

Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is open to students on eligible courses.

When does the survey take place?

This year's PTES survey launches on 23 February 2026 and closes on 15 May 2026.

How to fill out the PTES survey

If eligible, students will receive an email with a personalised link to the 10-minute survey, which is divided into short sections and asks you about your experience on your programme and your motivations for study.

PTES concentrates on your course and includes:

• Teaching and Learning
• Engagement
• Community
• Assessment and feedback
• Dissertation or major project
• Organisation and management
• Resources
• Support
• Skills development

It will also include a few extra questions about issues that are particularly relevant to us and to other students at the University of Portsmouth.

How it helps

The survey provides data that will help us better understand the postgraduate experience at the University of Portsmouth, and enhance the overall experiences of our different postgraduate taught (PGT) student groups. 

It also supports local charity. For every response to the survey, the University will donate 25p to Share Portsmouth. This charity works to reduce carbon, waste and raw material use through sharing, repairing and re-using, which helps to protect the planet and save money. 

Plus every student who completes a survey is entered into an individual prize draw, with prizes including: 

• £100 One4all voucher for brands like Primark, M&S, Currys, Boots, IKEA, restaurants and many more. 

• £50 Just Eat voucher for food takeaway or grocery deliveries  

• Two £25 vouchers for Waterstone or Vue Cinema. 

Your data 

After the survey has ended your anonymised data will be held securely for at least 10 years and may be used in summary form by Advance HE and the University of Portsmouth in scientific, research or statistical reports to better understand the postgraduate taught student experience.  No individual will ever be identified in any reports or publications. We will not store your data outside the EU or UK and we intend to publish a summary of the results later in the year. 

Personal data is held in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We can assure you that your responses to the Course Level Survey will be non-identifiable to us except in cases where there are genuine concerns for the student safety or signs of inappropriate behaviour. Any personally identifiable data will be securely deleted by Ipsos after the survey closes and will not be shared with any third parties. 

More information is available on the University Data Protection policy and Student Voice policy. 

If you have any questions, please let us know at studentsurveys@port.ac.uk.