The field identifies what the HE leaver considers to be their most important activity on the census date.

All HE leavers.

Only one box ticked by the HE leaver can be coded. Should the HE leaver tick more than one box, please refer to the options ticked for Student.ALLACT and;

• If only one of the options ticked in Student.MIMPACT is also ticked in Student.ALLACT please return this matched pair.
• If more than one option has been ticked in Student.MIMPACT and more than one of these options are also ticked in Student.ALLACT, please select the matched pair closest to the top of the list of valid entries.

The activity identified in this field must also be returned in Student.ALLACT.

Code X 'Ineligibility or explicit refusal' should be used when the question is not answered by the HE leaver due to either ineligibility or explicit refusal. This code must be used when either code 07 'Deceased' or code 08 'Reply received explicitly refusing to provide information' is returned in Student.STATUS.

If the leaver completes more than one activity but does not identify which is the most important, in the first instance the HEI should try and contact the leaver. If this is not possible the HEI can use their judgement to decide the most important.

In the case of a student who accurately completes the Employment section of the questionnaire, but identifies their Most Important Activity as code 3 'Unemployed and looking for work' HEIs can use their academic judgement to recode this field to use code 1 'Working full-time (including self-employed/freelance, voluntary or other unpaid work, developing a professional portfolio/creative practice or on an internship)' or code 2 'Working part-time (including self-employed/freelance, voluntary or other unpaid work, developing a professional portfolio/creative practice or on an internship)' as appropriate. A record of the change of code should be held with the questionnaire for audit purposes.

To record what the leaver considers to be the most important activity that they were engaged in on the census date. To provide context to analysis of more detailed data about leavers’ employment and further study.