**3.3 Advance HE accreditation and student engagement with teaching and learning**

Respondents were asked 4 key questions relating to the perceived impact of Advance HE accreditation on student engagement with teaching and learning. These 4 questions related to: student satisfaction; student achievement; student interactions with staff and student interactions with each other. Over 46% of respondents felt that accreditation had a positive impact on student satisfaction. It was notable however that 37.5% of respondents were 'unsure' and the qualitative commentary again emphasised the challenges of making causal links between institutional accreditation and the impact on student engagement, satisfaction and achievement. Of 21 qualitative comments, 18 reported difficulties measuring any impact on the end-users. In contrast to the impact on teachers and teaching and learning practices, there was limited evidence upon which respondents could draw any concrete conclusions. In fact, there was a sense that the impact on students was: *'impossible'* to ascertain; *'the biggest unknown'*; '*difficult to pinpoint';* and *'based more on intuition'.*

*This impact [on students] would be very indirect and whilst from other impacts I would hope it is positive I have no clear evidence at this time to make such claims.*

To be confident that institutional accreditation aligned to the UKPSF leads to positive impacts, there needs to be robust and rigorous measures in place to evidence this. Research has recently begun to emerge that attempts to address this point. In [51], for example, the author sets out to establish whether there was any relationship between National Student Survey scores in the UK and the rise in the number of HEA Fellowships. Using data over a six year period (2012–2018) he concluded that 'the growth in HEA Fellowships has no significant positive or negative association (p>0.05) with students' perceived quality of teaching and academic support, and their overall satisfaction with the course.' ([51], p. 4).
