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Senior Survey, Spring 2008

Guide to Interpreting the Change Over Time Graphs

The symbols in the graphs of the Senior Survey over-time results denote mean (average) item responses for a particular group of students. For example, in the general satisfaction graph, the first row labeled "Recommend UCB" illustrates mean responses, by year, for the item that asks seniors whether they would recommend CU-Boulder to a friend considering college.

The red diamonds in the graphs denote the 2008 campus-wide means for seniors. The letters denote means for seniors in other years (e.g., a "G" denotes a 2004 Senior Survey mean). A key showing the particular year denoted by each letter appears at the bottom of each graph.

Senior Survey items have several different response formats. For example, some items have a five-point scale, whereas others have a three-point scale. Consequently, response values for all items in the graphs have been re-scaled. This allows items with different response formats to be plotted on one graph that has a horizontal axis ranging from "low" to "high." The vertical bar in the center of the graph simply indicates the midpoint of that axis.

Last revision 06/20/08