Tuesday 25-04-2017 - 12:00

 

As you may know, one of my objectives this year is to create an impact report of student activities at Durham to inform the work of opportunity facilitators.

 

The first stage of the research project is now complete and I wanted to update you on some of the key findings.

The first stage survey found that, of the 1168 participants, 85% were involved in a student group at Durham University, whether that be an Experience Durham Club, a College society or a student group at Durham SU.

The most popular type of group to be involved in was an active group, with 76% of participants being involved in a sports or active group.

Of these participants involved in a group, 83% said they were content with their current involvement.

Despite this however, only 15% said they had never come across a barrier preventing them from getting involved (e.g. financial barriers/time constraints).

This would suggest that while many students are content with their current level of involvement in student group activities, many of them have had to overcome barriers in order to get involved.

The remaining 15% of our participants were not involved in a student group.

Over half of these participants said they would like to be involved, but either didn’t know how to get involved, or were unable to due to financial, time or distance related issues.

These findings indicate that there is more that we, as a Students’ Union, could be doing to enable more students to become involved in student group activities.

 

The second stage of my project aims to highlight the positive impact that being in a student group has on both the individuals involved and on the wider community around them. This, combined with the fact that there are more students who wish to become involved, will provide a solid basis for us to lobby for more funding and resources for our student groups, and to ensure Wednesday afternoons always remain free for extra-curricular activities.

 

The second part of the research project is finding out the impact of student groups.

To gather this data we need student group members to complete this survey and student group execs to complete this survey.

There are five £10 amazon vouchers to be won for individuals and £50 funding for a student group.