Student Surveys Planning Group Meeting Notes

Monday, November 14, 2005

Members attending: Bill Banis, Michele Bitoun, Stephen Carr, Debbie Crimmins, Michael Dacey, Mary Desler, Susan Dun, Steve Fisher, Linda Garton, Simon Greenwold, Bill Hayward, Jim Kaczkowski, Marilyn McCoy, Michael Mills, Lisa Swanson, Eric Johnson (ex officio)

Guests attending: John Dunkle, Kelly McNeill

Introductions

Executive Committee Report

-Was formed to address and quickly respond to ad hoc survey requests

-Sets agenda for meetings

New Student Surveys in 2005-06

-Spirituality Survey administered by University Chaplain (Timothy Stevens) and faculty in School of Education (Lois Trautvetter)

  • Study has permission to use HERI questions to conduct survey of 50% of UG population to study variance of religious practices between high school and college students and possibly compare against collected HERI data
  • Slightly different questions exist for freshmen and seniors…some concern about question items (i.e. faculty-related questions)
  • Would like to administer on-line, link sent via email, during December holiday break but could push back
  • Executive committee will meet with P.I.s for further review
  • Survey still needs IRB approval

-COFHE Parents Survey has been postponed until 2006-07

-Academic Integrity Survey (Steve Fisher)

  • Several of NU’s peers have participated over past 15 years
  • Low electronic response rate is a concern, still waiting for hard copies to be returned

-National Research Consortium of Colleges and UniversityCounselingCenters in Higher Education Survey on Suicide (John Dunkle)

  • Seeking stratified random sample of 1,000 UG and G&P students to participate in electronic survey that will enable CAPS to make important decisions about how to best provide services for students
  • Students will be contacted via email (in February) and can participate using web link, survey takes 5 to 25 minutes with resources (i.e. help lines and emergency numbers displayed throughout survey) to address sensitivity issues and possible reactions
  • May have to address possible notion that survey is reaction to incident…survey was planned before last weekend’s student suicide
  • NU will receive raw data, other participating institutions will not see NU data

-NRC Study of Doctoral Programs graduate student survey (Simon Greenwold)

  • Will survey 2nd and 5th year doctoral students on student satisfaction this year in preparation for fall 2007 NRC survey
  • Use of incentives raised as an issue, in general we discourage use of incentives, but it is not prohibited

Analyses/Presentations

-COFHE Alumni Survey (Debbie Crimmins)

  • Lower response rate was disappointment. Incentives were in place for class of ’89 survey, which was conducted entirely by mail. Class of ’94 survey yielded higher response rate for electronic version than mailed paper version.
  • Summary data and gender report sent to SSPG via email, further analysis by school available but only for web respondents
  • Should consider surveying multiple classes, would allow us to do more in way of both longitudinal (follow a cohort) and cross sectional (5,10,15 and 20 years out) analyses
  • Email addresses available for classes back to 60’s and 70’s, lifetime email forwarding exists though most caught in first 3 years out, currently have about 82,000 email addresses for 190,000 alumni
  • Possibility for supplemental employment questions?

-COFHE Senior Survey (Debbie Crimmins)

  • Increased response rates
  • 2005-06 will be “on” year for all COFHE institutions, first time since 2001-02
  • Lisa Swanson conducted an analysis of the full battery of satisfaction questions last year that would be interesting to update
  • Would be useful to compare ourselves to not only all COFHE institutions but also COFHE universities, and perhaps even Ivy vs. Non-Ivy universities
  • Using a variety of measure would be useful to better understand the distribution and variance of responses (standard deviation, percentages by response, etc.)
  • Open-ended responses/comments reviewed and shared with school reps and issue “experts” (i.e. Study Abroad)

Review of Standard Annual Projects

-Undergraduate Admitted Student Survey (Michael Mills)

  • Completed with high response rate (4/5)
  • No major shifts since 2000 “Dane” study
  • Using Student Tracker through Clearinghouse, able to test validity
  • Possible other institutional uses of Student Tracker (e.g. study undergraduates who leave NU before graduating)
  • Summary data available for January SSPG meeting and Michael Mills will present them at that meeting

-Admitted Graduate Student Survey (Simon Greenwold)

  • Conducted for first time this year…followed McCormick model, helps with recruitment
  • Collected raw data and qualitative comments and will present summary data for January SSPG meeting

-HERI Freshmen CIRP Survey (Eric Johnson)

  • Paper survey mailed out at end of summer break with postcard and email follow-up…Lower response rate
  • NU data will arrive in late January/February…COFHE data in February/March
  • We are hopeful that survey will be administered online in 2006
  • 2004 data and trends located on SSPG web site

-HERI Your FirstCollege Year Survey (Mary Desler)

  • Problems with HERI led to low response rate
  • Summary data will be available for January SSPG meeting

-Graduation First Destinations and Salary Survey (Bill Banis)

  • Data currently being analyzed and summary data will be available for January SSPG meeting

Roundtable

-Executive Committee will survey schools before January meeting to prompt for issues

-Outcomes assessment …how can SSPG framework address re-accredidation collection needs

Conclusion

-Next meeting is January 20th, 2006