TÜMA Türkiye University Satisfaction Survey

For many years, higher education institutions have been evaluated through institutional indicators such as research performance, publication productivity, international visibility, academic reputation and graduate outcomes. While these indicators provide valuable information, they do not reflect the educational processes, academic support services and campus life that students directly experience.

Over the past two decades, higher education research has shown that the student experience is one of the fundamental sources of information for assessing quality. Many countries have developed national surveys that regularly monitor the student experience: the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in the US, the National Student Survey (NSS) in the UK and the Student Experience Survey (SES) in Australia are common examples.

TÜMA is an independent evaluation model developed for the Turkish higher education system, drawing on the core principles of international student satisfaction surveys. First conducted in 2016, the study is based on the understanding that students are the primary stakeholders who directly experience their universities, and evaluates universities through their assessments.

The purpose of the study is to scientifically determine the satisfaction levels of formal undergraduate students in Türkiye and to evaluate universities through comparable indicators based on students' assessments.

TÜMA does not evaluate universities through publication productivity, citation impact, international visibility or institutional size. Instead, it takes a holistic approach to satisfaction with the learning experience, academic support, campus life, administrative services, learning opportunities and personal development. The aim is not to reward or punish universities, but to provide scientific, data-driven feedback for improving student satisfaction.

TÜMA's approach was developed by considering foundational work on student satisfaction and higher education quality (Astin, 1993; Tinto, 1993; Kuh, 2009; Harvey, 2008) and international practices such as NSSE, NSS and SES, together with national requirements.

In international evaluation systems, a methodology does more than list indicators; it defines what they measure, what data they rely on, which institutions they cover, how results are calculated and how they should be interpreted. Accordingly, the TÜMA methodology answers four fundamental questions:

TÜMA's population consists of formal undergraduate students enrolled at higher education institutions in Türkiye. Only students enrolled in formal undergraduate programmes are included.

The universities covered in each research period and the sampling details are explained in that year's technical report. For a university's results to be reported, it must meet the sampling and data-quality criteria set for that period. Institutions without sufficient usable data, or which fail these criteria, may be excluded from the overall ranking or flagged with a separate note in the report.

TÜMA's aim is not to reach as many students as possible but to build a reliable sample that accurately represents the research population. Quota sampling is used, taking into account differences in student numbers, faculty structures and student profiles across universities.

1. 01Grouping universities by their formal undergraduate student numbers.
2. 02Determining the minimum sample size for each group using a 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error.
3. 03Establishing sample quotas based on gender and faculty/programme distributions.
4. 04Rebuilding the sampling plan each period from current YÖK statistics.

Data is collected via the Student Satisfaction Questionnaire. The instrument is based on an item pool created through a 2016 literature review, student focus groups and expert panels. Its final form was reached after pilot studies and validity and reliability analyses.

The questionnaire uses a 10-point Likert-type rating scale and consists of 60 items in total. Each satisfaction domain is measured by 10 items.

The study is conducted online. Participants are reached through the ÜniAr Participant Database, the ÜniAr website, student communities and other communication channels.

1. 01Invitation — Students are reached through various channels and invited to the study.
2. 02Participation ID — Each participant receives a personal survey participation ID.
3. 03Informed consent — Consent is obtained before the survey begins.
4. 04Qualtrics — Surveys are administered on the Qualtrics platform.
5. 05Quality monitoring — Session data, response times and control questions support data quality.

These elements aim to reduce duplicate participation and unreliable response patterns.

Once fieldwork is complete, all data goes through a systematic checking and cleaning process before analysis. This is not merely a technical step; it is a core quality-assurance stage that secures the reliability and comparability of results. The following records are excluded from the final analysis:

Only records meeting the quality criteria are included in the analyses. The final dataset produced after this process is used for scoring and ranking.

Universities' satisfaction scores are calculated directly from students' answers to the survey items. Assessments are used as given; no statistical normalisation is applied to the scores.

TÜMA results are satisfaction indicators showing how students evaluate their universities. They should not be confused with indicators of research performance, international visibility, graduate success or financial capacity.

The overall score shows students' holistic assessment, while domain scores reveal where a university is strong and where it may need development. Results should be read not as a verdict but as data-driven feedback on student satisfaction.

When interpreting ranking positions, sample size, participant profile, that year's data-collection conditions and the satisfaction domains should be considered together. Year-on-year comparisons should take into account the scope and sampling information published in the relevant technical report.

Joining the TÜMA family this year, TÜMA-ALAN is a new study that measures student satisfaction at the level of individual academic fields (programme groups) rather than the university as a whole.

Even within the same university, the student experience differs markedly across fields. A single university-wide score can hide both a strong programme's highlights and a struggling programme's needs inside the average. Prospective students usually choose a programme, not a university; current students live their experience through their own field. TÜMA-ALAN fills this gap by making satisfaction visible at the programme-group level.

Results are reported over these nine field groups, which make comparison meaningful, rather than individual programmes. Universities' programmes are mapped to these groups; the mapping principles are defined in the period's technical report. The same field groups are also used in the TÜMA-Mezun study. For each field group an overall satisfaction score and four dimension scores are calculated, enabling comparison across universities.