Post 16 biology survey

The Royal Society of Biology (RSB) is working with its curriculum committee to consider what the future of biology education in schools might look like. As part of this work we gathered evidence on the impact of curriculum reforms which included a survey on post 16 biology education.

The survey was aimed at first year undergraduates in biology and asked them to reflect on their experience of biology at school or college, assessing how well prepared for university they felt and their confidence at undertaking a variety of practical and transferable science skills. 

The survey was open during the autumn term from October to the end of November 2016. We followed this up with a snapshot survey in the spring, which asked the same first years to reflect on how well prepared for university they felt as they reached the end of the first year of study.

We will continue to open the surveys again during the same time period in consecutive years so that we can begin to establish if there are any trends and differences between cohorts who have taken different qualifications.

The initial findings of the 2016-17 post 16 survey can be seen here.