Learner

The survey is voluntary – but it is important that as many people complete this survey as possible. This is so that lots of different kinds of people can give their opinion and no one is left out.

The survey will be run twice – once at the beginning of your course, and once a few months after you finish your course. The survey is to find out what sort of changes happen in people’s lives while they are studying, so the first survey needs to happen before you get a long way into your course.

Yes, there are different ways you can do the survey. The survey is online, and so you can take part using a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop, or a computer.

The full survey is available in English, Arabic, Bengali, Kurdish Sorani, Polish, Portuguese, Somali, Spanish, Russian, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Urdu. You can also request a telephone call to help you do the survey, in English if you have difficulty using computers (like if you have a disability), or in any other language if you cannot use any of the languages available online.

If you would find it difficult to finish the survey in one go, at the start of the survey you can ask to be sent a new link by email; this will then let you pause the survey and re-start it later, without losing any of your answers.

If you cannot do the survey online, you can ask to do the survey by telephone.

You can also ask your learning provider for a paper version of the survey, which will be in English.

If you need help filling in the survey (whether online, or on paper), please speak to a tutor at your learning provider and ask if they can help you.

If you are doing courses starting in different months, your learning provider might ask you to do more than one survey. This is to make sure we get information as close as possible to the start of each course – for example, your health or your employment might change during the year. If your courses are starting very close together then you will only be asked to do one survey. If you have already completed the survey and you try to complete it again within 90 days, the survey will recognise this and show you a message on screen to let you know that you do not need to complete the survey again.

A research company called IFF Research is running this survey. There is a small team of people working at this company who will be able to see your answers. These people are not allowed to tell anyone else about your answers. Your answers will not be given to anyone else, and no one else will be able to see them in a way that is linked to your name. Your learning provider will not be able to see your individual answers.

When the survey is finished, all of the answers from learners in all the different learning providers in London will be put together, analysed and written about in a report. The report will say things like “20% of people were studying to help improve their job.” The report will not mention anyone’s name.

The survey asks for your student number so that the research company, IFF Research, can add on information about what course you are doing after you complete the survey. This means we don’t need to ask you for this information in the survey. If you enter your student number the survey system will also check if you have already completed the survey recently, and let you know if you don’t need to do it again.

This is a number that you may have been given when you enrolled / signed up to start on the course. It might be on your student card, or a letter from the provider confirming your enrolment or email from your learning provider confirming you are doing the course. You can also ask your tutor for help if you don’t know your student number.

If you don’t have a student number, you can still do the survey.

This survey is to understand how people’s lives change while they study, and after they have finished studying. Studying can influence people’s lives in different ways. There might be changes to the job you get after studying, but there might be other changes too, like how happy you are, how confident you feel, or the kinds of people you spend time with. It is important we know about all the different changes that might happen in people’s lives.

The survey is to understand how people’s lives change while they study, and after they have finished studying. Studying can help people to learn new skills, find new jobs or progress in their current job. We want to understand any changes in work, pay, and how much you like your job, which might be affected by studying.

If you find it difficult to answer questions about how much you are usually paid, your best guess is fine. The answers you give will be collected and analysed together with all the other responses to the survey. There is no way for your employer, learning provider, the GLA, or anybody else to see the answers you give to these questions in a way that is connected to your name.

The survey will be run twice – once at the beginning of your course, and once a few months after you finish your course. You are asked to provide your contact details so that IFF Research can get in touch with you to do the follow up survey. Also, by providing your contact details you can be entered into the prize draw to win an iPad. The contact details you provide will only be seen by a small number of people working at IFF Research and will only be used to contact you for the follow up survey or the prize draw.

Yes, this survey follows all the rules about data protection. All of the answers you give in the survey will be kept completely safe and will not be given to anyone else.

If you want to see the answers you have given in the survey, or if you want to change your answers or you want your answers to be deleted, this is fine. You can find out how to do this on the IFF Research website.

If you are having problems making the survey work online, please speak to your course tutor. They may be able to help, or they can speak to the research company that is running the survey, who will try to fix the problem.

We also have some help for technical problems below:

I can’t get into the survey / the survey link doesn’t work

– Make sure you are typing the survey link into the address bar of the browser. This will be at the top of the window and have “http://” at the start. Do not type the survey link into a search engine such as Google.

– If you are using a laptop or computer, try using a different browser (e.g. Chrome or Microsoft Edge). If you are using a phone or tablet you can scan the QR code on the survey posters or leaflets.

I asked for a unique survey link to be emailed to me, but it hasn’t arrived

– Check your Junk email folder – it may be in there

– It can take up to an hour for the emails to arrive – you may just need to wait a bit longer

– You might have typed your email address wrong – you can go back into the survey and ask for the email to be sent again

I paused the survey and now can’t go back in

– If you requested a unique link by email, you can pause and re-start the survey. However, for security reasons, after you pause you will need to wait 15 minutes before you can go back into the survey.

– If you did not request a unique link, if you close the survey you will need to start again. You can start the survey again by clicking the link in the email from your provider, or by typing in the survey address from the posters or leaflets, or scanning the QR code.

Taking part in the survey will help provide better information about how studying helps learners, which will be used to improve courses and learner support. If you take part in the survey and provide your contact details you can enter a prize draw to win an iPad. The draw will take place after the end of each month, and the winner will be selected at random. See here for full terms and conditions.