Tag Archives: Sunderland

Sunderland survey results: What do journalism students want from their training?

Ninety-one per cent of journalism students think web-based skills were ‘vital’ or ‘important’ skills for journalism students, according to a recent study on the future of journalism education.

More than half the respondents were in favour of learning coding skills too.

But some of the most interesting ‘data’ from the University of Sunderland’s survey comes in the individual responses from students:

  • “At the moment I’m spending so much time mastering ways of presenting information that I’m not spending anywhere near enough time understanding what story should be told. I’m learning slick presentations of slim stories. This can’t be right,” said one student.
  • “I don’t think newsgathering and writing should be in the same category. Journalism doesn’t revolve around the print product, it revolves around reporting.”
  • “I feel there is already too much emphasis on web-base skills, as you can find good stories without using the web. Having to learn web-coding as part of the course would, I feel, take away from actually going out and finding stories.”
  • And in response to the question, ‘what would you like to see added to your course curriculum’, popular topics: more online, more specialisms and more business/entrepreneurial training [see Newcastle University’s plans on this topic].

(Interesting to compare some of these student responses, which were gathered by contacting journalism schools and online, with the results of the National Council for the Training of Journalists’ (NCTJ) recent skills survey.)

More responses to the University of Sunderland’s survey, which had 144 responses, can be seen below, courtesy of @joshhalliday’s blog: