I managed to get 15 students to answer my questionnaire which I was pleased with after I initially struggled to get any students to respond to my email requests. 10 responses were from LCF students and once I had received these, I reached out to a tutor at LCC to see if he could pass on the link to some of his students studying MA animation.  

Analysis on questions about the beginning of an SSP:  

Confidence about contracts was something that I tested through a question about how the students felt about understanding the terms in the contract for their SSP, the average rating was 5.53 out of 10 which I feel is quite low (Figure 1). 3 students were clear that they definitely had an opportunity to ask questions about the contract but 8 students were unsure whether or not they actually had this opportunity. I then went on to ask them about how confident they were understanding how their IP was managed in the SSP and unfortunately this average rating was even lower at 4.80 out of 10 (Figure 2)  

Figure 1: The answers from students in response to Question 6 of my ARP questionnaire.  
Figure 2: The answers from students in responses to Question 8 of my ARP questionnaire.  

Analysis on questions reflecting on the experiences of the students during the SSP:  

The average rating for how proud students felt of the work they had created out of 10 was 7.47 which is pleasing to see as it would appear that the majority of them are proud of their work. There was only 1 student of the 15 who’s answer was below 5 for this question. However, when asked to rank how important the work was going forwards the average rating was only 6.73 out of 10.  

7 students have used the work created in their SSP in their portfolio and 9 have used it for job or internship applications, it’s great to see that what they have created was useful for their ongoing progression and further work.  

Analysis on the value of SSPs for students:  

Students were asked what they think was the most valuable aspect, experience or highlight of working on the SSP. Some of the answers they gave were as follows (presented in a random order):  

  • ‘Collaborating with students from different courses at LCF that I didn’t work with before to brainstorm new ideas for the company’ 
  • ‘It was great to work with students that had different background and skills in the business side of fashion not just design.’ 
  • ‘I enjoyed working with my team and the external partner team as we were able to learn lots about starting and running a start-up business and I got to be involved with data analysis and business development which is something that I want to be involved with in my career. It was useful to learn about new technologies in fashion from the perspective of brands or companies that are implementing them as often we hear more about the idea/concept side of technologies rather than practicalities.’ 
  • ‘I think it was valuable to work on a live animation brief as this is something that I will do when I have graduated.’ 
  • ‘This unit was the first time that I had done a live brief so it was great work experience and I enjoyed working with my friends on the project to share skillsets’ 

The students were then asked if they could change one thing about the SSP that they were involved with what would that change be. Their answers were as follows (presented in a random order):  

  • ‘I am not sure whether we signed a contract at the beginning but this would have been useful to discuss how we managed the relationship with the company as our team did lots of market research for the brand which would have supported their business development. As it was more research based I didn’t create anything that I could use in my portfolio’ 
  • ‘I think it would be good to have more live briefs so that we can present our work to industry on a regular basis during the MA as this will help in getting jobs freelancer afterwards.’ 
  • ‘Even though we worked with an external animation company I don’t think that they understood how long it took to create these projects. It was months worth of work for each person in the group and I think we were paid less than half of what we would be paid in industry for the same project. I know that I am a student but I have industry experience and am undertaking an MA, we produced industry standard work and should have been paid a fair amount for this high level of work for the client. I think we should have a meeting with our course leader at the beginning of the project to negotiate our fees like if we were freelancers in industry to make sure that the project outcomes and budget are clear from the beginning.’ 

Surprisingly many of the answers given for question 16 were focused on contracts and understanding IP, there were a few queries about questions that I had asked earlier in the questionnaire which related to IP. I wonder if this was due to their lack of understanding of IP which was in some ways the main focus of the questionnaire or whether the questions about IP led them towards focusing on this for their ‘what would you change’ answers. It is an interesting consideration in hindsight, maybe reordering the questions might have changed the answers given?  

For full answers to these questions please refer to attached Excel document below. The participant places have been randomised and the question asking them for a 4 digit number in order to withdraw in the future if needed has been removed for the purpose of anonymising this research.