Further information

Graduate surveys have been conducted at the University of Kassel since 2007. For this purpose, the project "UNIKAB - Implementation of Graduate Studies at the University of Kassel" was started at the beginning, which took over the introduction and further development in the context of the nationwide cooperation project Graduate Studies (KOAB). It became apparent that the Kassel Graduate Study is a valuable instrument for university development and university publicity and that the implementation within the university could be successfully completed. The UNIKAB project was therefore discontinued in 2014 and the Kassel Graduate Study was integrated as a fixed component of the central quality management and anchored in the evaluation statutes in 2015. At the same time, in 2016 the management and coordination of the nationwide cooperation project Graduate Studies passed from the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCHER-Kassel) to the Institute for Applied Statistics (ISTAT).

Encouraged by the high willingness of graduates to participate, but also by the positive response within the university, first and second surveys (panel) will therefore continue to be conducted, evaluated and the results communicated within the university. The insights gained will be continuously incorporated into the development of the study programs and the optimization of the study conditions. The surveys are conducted in cooperation with the Institute for Applied Statistics (ISTAT). The University of Kassel is a member of the nationwide Graduate Studies Network. Within the framework of this network, the optimization of the survey instruments, the organizational processes as well as the processing of the results are discussed in regular workshops and benchmarking between the participating universities is made possible.

Graduate studies are standardized, i.e. online, questionnaire-based surveys of university graduates that take place some time after graduation. The Kassel Graduate Study is conducted 1.5 years after graduation and includes a follow-up survey (only after written consent of respondents) approximately 4.5 years after graduation.

Graduate studies provide answers to the following questions:

• In which occupational fields do the graduates work? For this purpose, information is requested, for example, on the employment sector and industry, but also on the duration and mobility in the context of the search for employment.
• What are the occupational conditions? This includes, for example, income situation, working hours, temporary employment, activities, role and position in the organization.
• Does the professional situation match the study content? This includes, for example, the assessment of the adequacy of the professional situation and the fit of the required and acquired competencies.
• How do graduates assess their studies retrospectively? This is about the bond with the university and the satisfaction with aspects of the studies such as practical relevance, theory and method training, fit of the curriculum, etc.

These and other questions provide the university with a sound insight into the professional situation of its graduates and can be used to improve the quality of their studies.

The data and reports are processed by the responsible persons in Department II - Studies and Teaching (s. Contact). From here, certain report formats (table volumes, graphical evaluations) are forwarded to various areas within the university, primarily the departments, but also other service institutions such as student marketing, student counseling, the career service, etc.. There, the findings are used to design offers that are more in line with demand and to improve the quality of the study programs.

The data collected is an important indicator of the quality of higher education and is requested, for example, in re-accreditation procedures (review and recognition of study programs by external agencies). Graduate studies can be used to check the extent to which a degree program fulfills the goals and requirements it has set itself, how practice-oriented the program is, whether broad-based theoretical and methodological knowledge is taught, and how high or low the degree of interdisciplinarity and internationality is.

The nationwide data sets produced by ISTAT are also used to address scientific questions and to prepare and publish scientific studies in the field of higher education and graduate research.

Last but not least, selected aggregated (and thus in any case anonymized, see data protection) results are published on our website.