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Senior Survey, Spring 2001

Introduction & Methods

INTRODUCTION

We regularly ask seniors about their satisfaction with their educational experiences at CU-Boulder (UCB) and about their after-graduation plans and activities. Our goal is to provide systematic information:

• for academic and service units to use in planning and improvements,
• to help the Boulder campus meet state requirements for institutional accountability, and
• for use by the state and by prospective and current students and their families.

Web-based questionnaires were completed by 1,034 students who were seniors in spring 2001, or 51% of those surveyed. This report summarizes the results across all respondents.

METHODS

Population and Sample:

The population was all students classified as seniors in spring 2001 who had an e-mail address and who had not requested that their personal directory information be kept private. A stratified random sample of 2,020 (47% of the population) was contacted. The population included both seniors expecting to graduate in spring or summer 2001 (58% of respondents) and those expecting to graduate in fall 2001 or later.

Students in twenty-nine large majors and the schools/colleges of Architecture and Planning, Journalism, and Music were oversampled to allow us to characterize these majors and schools/colleges separately. The majors included economics, psychology, and others, as well as clusters of smaller individual majors. For example, French, German, and other foreign languages were clustered into a large "language" group for oversampling. In all analyses, we have weighted to compensate for oversampling and for differential response rates within the majors and schools/colleges.

Contact method:

RESPONSE RATE

Fifty-one percent of sample members completed the questionnaire on the Web (n=1,034). The 51% response rate is equivalent to the rate in 1998, but somewhat lower than that obtained in prior years, when all questionnaires were mailed with a $2 bill incentive. This rate is also comparable to, or better than, those of other recent surveys conducted locally and nationally.

In 1998, the survey was administered both by mail and on the web, with lower lottery incentives than the one offered in 2001. This time, the survey was administered only on the web, with many smaller incentives and one much larger overall prize offered to all respondents.

Response rates by college and major

QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

The 2001 senior questionnaire consists of two general sections:

• Quality of the Undergraduate Experience (questions in this section focus on respondents' attitudes about and experiences with UCB programs), and
• After Graduation Plans (questions focus on respondents' employment and educational plans after graduation)

The 2001 questionnaire consists of 105 "forced-choice" items in which respondents check off one or more choices from a list, 12 short-answer items (to record future job or school plans), and four open-ended items.

The 2001 senior questionnaire is very similar to the 1998 questionnaire. The changes made to the 2001 questionnaire included:

• replacing a question about quality of texts with a question about opportunity to improve writing skills
• eliminating three questions assessing overall evaluations of social, cultural, and recreational experiences at UCB
• eliminating two services that were evaluated - UCB listings on the World Wide Web, and e-mail - and adding several services not previously listed: Dennis Small Cultural Center, GLBT Resource Center, NightRIDE/NightWALK, PLUS, and Program Council events
• splitting the item asking for evaluation of the UMC into two items, one focused on food services and one on all other services of the UMC
• eliminating several questions about out-of-class activities, notably those about exercise, web use, personal reading, and outlining study notes
• rewording items about faculty interactions to exclude TAs
• adding one item and changing another to assess interactions with diverse others
• removing two open-ended questions (asking why some students take 4 years and others longer to graduate, and what students tell others about CU-Boulder) and adding a new open-ended item asking how CU-Boulder affected seniors' development in ways not related to academics.

To see a copy of the questionnaire used for web data collection:
Web Version of the Senior Survey

l:\ir\survey\senior\sr01\

Last revision 07/17/03