The Student Experience of University Armed Service Unit Participation

In this chapter, we bring together the key findings from the survey of student participants in USUs, undertaken in spring 2013, in order to capture quantitative and qualitative data on the value of the USUs from the perspective of student participants. The questionnaire is reproduced in Appendix 1, and details on the distribution and analysis of the survey are given in section 2.2.1 above. A total of 1,798 responses were received. Of these, 842 identified as being in the OTC, 656 in the UAS and 285 in the URNU.54 In this chapter we explore the results of the survey in terms of the demographics of the units, the university and educational profile of the sample, motivations for joining a USU, the role of USU participation in skills development, student perceptions of the effect of USU participation on progression through university, the influence of participation on student career choices including careers in the armed forces, student understandings of the potential utility of the USU experience in seeking and gaining employment after graduation, student opinions about the armed forces on the basis of their USU participation and overall student assessments of their USU experience. Key findings are highlighted in the concluding section, and the wider implications of these are discussed in the concluding chapter.