Postgraduate Research Experience Questionnaire (PREQ)

The Postgraduate Research Experience Questionnaire (PREQ) is part of the Australian Graduate Survey (AGS), an annual survey of university graduates developed by Graduate Careers Australia (GCA). The aim of the PREQ is to determine what graduates thought of the research program that they had recently completed, including their attitudes towards the skills they developed, and the quality of supervision provided, during their program.

The scope of the PREQ is all graduates who completed a postgraduate research program at an Australian university during the previous year (e.g. the scope of the 2007 survey is graduates who completed their program in 2006). Graduates who completed a coursework program are sent the Course Experience Questionnaire (CEQ) instead of the PREQ.

The PREQ consists of a series of statements, and graduates are asked whether they agree with each statement. The possible responses are strongly disagree, disagree, uncertain, agree, strongly agree, and that the statement does not apply. The statements are divided into several scales, which are groups of statements that have a similar theme (e.g. supervision, thesis examination). Unlike the CEQ, none of the scales in the PREQ is optional; all of the questions are asked by every institution. The full list of PREQ scales and questions can be found here.

The PREQ is not used in the Learning and Teaching Performance Fund, and data from the PREQ are not currently available in the Data Warehouse. The results of the PREQ for the University of Adelaide are reported in the University's performance reports.