Latest rankings show Southern Cross leads in psychology, social work

Southern Cross also ranked well-above national average for social work, placing equal fourth, in the latest Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) dataset released today by the Federal Government.

In student support, learning resources, graduate satisfaction and median salary Southern Cross outperformed many metropolitan universities.

The results come less than a month after the University’s impressive Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) results, where Southern Cross performed at or above ‘world standard’ in 23 areas of research.

Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) Professor Tyrone Carlin said the QILT results showed Southern Cross was the University of choice for students across a variety of disciplines, including top performers psychology and social work, and was proven once again to be a leader in student support.

“The strong QILT data underscores the strengths of Southern Cross in many areas like law, education, environment and agriculture, communications and postgraduate business and management studies,” Professor Carlin said.

“Southern Cross University is known for its world-class research, with outstanding teaching and learning, and is leading the valuable contribution regional universities make in delivering quality education in Australia.”

Southern Cross outperformed the national average for teaching quality, skills development and overall postgraduate and graduate satisfaction in the results which are drawn from surveys of student satisfaction.

The University’s overall quality of educational experience for psychology was 92.1 per cent, almost 10 points (8.9) above the national average.

All student experience categories for psychology ranked well-above national average including student support (18.1 above average), teaching quality (9.6), learning resources (6.1), skills development (5.9) and learner engagement which ranked a massive 20.5 points higher than the national average. Psychology graduates reported a 91.5 per cent overall employment rate (6.5 above average) with graduate satisfaction around 90 per cent.

Southern Cross offers a Bachelor of Psychological Science, a Bachelor of Psychological Science with Honours, a double in Psychological Science and Laws and this year introduced a combined Exercise Science and Psychological Science degree. The University is located on Australia’s East Coast with campuses at Lismore, Coffs Harbour, Gold Coast and online.

Psychology lecturer Dr Desirée Kozlowski said the results reflect the trend of students moving from capital cities to study the undergraduate and Honours degree at Southern Cross University.

“The new combined degree of Exercise Science and Psychological Science at Coffs Harbour campus is also popular, and there’s a real buzz with the new $12million Allied Health building nearing completion where Psychology will be a key player alongside Occupational Therapy, Indigenous Health, Mental Health and others,” Dr Kozlowski said.

Physical sciences and psychology at Southern Cross were ranked in the top four per cent of universities worldwide in the Times Higher Education 2019 subject rankings earlier this year.