The Framework › Academic
Course Content & Relevance
Distribution of responses
How institutions vary
See the institutional spread
How far apart the weakest and strongest institutions sit on Course Content & Relevance, and how much of a student's experience is decided by where they study.
What we ask
“The course content feels relevant to me.”
What students say, and why
Read all 5 comments
The full set of de-identified student comments from the lowest- and highest-scoring responses on this topic.
Related insights
Students can handle the difficulty. They question the assessment.
Course difficulty scores 6.9 out of 10 with only 7% struggling, but alignment between assessment and learning objectives sits at 6.3 with nearly 1 in 4 in the bottom band. The friction is not how hard the course is; it is whether the assessment measures what students actually know.
Four factorsAcademic engagement is the strongest lever on student success
EVA's research names academic engagement the factor with the greatest effect on completion, grades and wellbeing. In StudentPulse data, the most engaged students report wellbeing 1.3 points higher than the least. Here is how to measure and move it.
How we measure it
This is the topic-level average across its subtopics, on a 0-10 scale (higher is better), so an individual subtopic can score higher or lower than the topic shown here. Figures are scored responses from the last 12 months, mapped to the 2026 framework via the canonical question mapping. Movement compares the most recent six months with the prior six. Distribution bands: 0-4, >4-<8, 8-10. Cross-institution aggregate; no single institution identified; minimum group size applied.
Read the State of the Student Experience 2026
Our annual report: what more than three million student datapoints reveal about wellbeing, teaching and belonging, and what actually moves recommendation and retention. Free, for a work email.