PBA Home > Institutional Research & Analysis > Surveys > Undergraduate Students 1997 > Results by class level

Undergraduate Students - 1997

Results by class level

Highlights
Results Summary
Background
Results
Methods Notes
Detailed Results

The spring 1997 Undergraduate Survey asked students about their satisfaction, their use of time, why they chose to enroll at CU-Boulder, and what aspects of CU-Boulder they would most like to see changed, among other things.

In this report we present results by the following class levels:

• new freshmen (n=142) -- students who entered CU-Boulder as a new freshmen in fall 1996
• other lower-division students (n=177) -- students classified as freshmen or sophomores in spring 1997, but not classified as new freshmen
• upper-division students -- students classified as juniors or seniors in spring 1997

• Patterns of and use of and satisfaction with campus services are very similar across groups.
• All three groups are generally satisfied with their experiences at CU-Boulder.
• All three groups are attending college "to get a good job or go to graduate school" and/or "to become a better person."
• All three groups spend the most time and effort on attending classes and studying and preparing for classes.
• At least 30% of each group thinks that CU-Boulder should reduce class size, decrease the cost of attending, and improve the core curriculum.

• New freshmen tend to be the most satisfied and upper-division students tend to be the least satisfied with their campus experiences. Possibly, the longer one is here, the less satisfied he/she becomes.
• Compared to upper-division students, new freshmen and lower-division students spend more time on socializing and hanging-out.
• New freshmen are more likely than lower-division students and upper-division students to think they will have more time than they actually do to engage in various campus-related activities.

The three class level groups have many similar attitudes and experiences
 

• About 60% of each group say the amount of academic challenge they're experiencing is "about right."
• The large majority (87-99%) of each group say they expect to get a CU-Boulder degree.
• The majority (66-81%) of each group say they would choose to attend CU-Boulder again if they had to do it all over. (However, the proportion is lowest for upper-division students.)
• Of 23 campus-related services, all three groups tend to be most satisfied with recreation/intramural programs and services, campus mass-transit services, and library facilities/services and least satisfied with parking facilities/services and food services.
• Of 42 aspects of the undergraduate experience, all three groups tend to be most satisfied with athletic facilities and the condition of buildings and grounds and the least satisfied with "concern for you as an individual," availability of courses, residence hall rules and regulations, and how student activity fees are used.
• Of twelve activities, all three groups tend to spend the most time and effort on attending classes and studying/preparing for classes and the least time and effort on seeking out staff and volunteer activities.
• 39% or more of each class level group say that they are spending more time than they expected to on each of studying/preparing for a class and working at a computer.
• 30% or more of each class level group say that they are spending less time than they expected on each of socializing/hanging out and exercising.
• The three reasons cited most frequently for attending college by each of the three groups are to gain skills for a job or life, to become a better person, and to get a good job or go to graduate school.
• The most frequently cited reason for choosing to attend CU-Boulder by each of the three groups is CU-Boulder's location/setting.
• When asked what three areas CU-Boulder could change that would do the most to increase students' chance of graduating, 30% or more of each class level group said reduce class size, decrease cost, and improve core curriculum.
• When asked what is the one personal issue that had the greatest likelihood of preventing students from graduating, the most frequently cited issue by each of the three groups is money.

New freshmen tend to be the most satisfied and upper-division students the least satisfied with their campus experiences.

• For example, new freshmen are more satisfied than upper-division students with "this campus in general," "course variety offered by the college," "faculty attitude toward students," "availability of student housing," "nonteaching staff's attitude toward students," "racial harmony on the campus," "student voice in campus policies," and "concern for you as an individual."
• Compared to new freshmen and lower-division students, upper-division students are less likely to say that they would choose CU-Boulder again if they had it to do over.

• Compared to upper-division students, new freshmen and lower-division students are more likely to say that they chose to attend CU-Boulder because of its location/setting and its social life.
• Compared to upper-division students, lower-division students and new freshmen spend more hours per week socializing and fewer hours per week working at a computer and working for pay.
• New freshmen are more likely than lower-division students and upper-division students to have unrealistic time-related expectations, particularly in terms of thinking they will have more time than they actually do to engage in various campus-related activities. Compared to lower-division and upper-division students, new freshmen are more likely to say that they are spending more time than expected on socializing and attending classes.
• Compared to lower-division and upper-division students, new freshmen are more likely to say that they are spending less time than expected on extracurricular activities, seeking out faculty, working for pay, working at a computer, and seeking out staff.
• Compared to lower-division and upper-division students, new freshmen are more likely to report using food services and are less likely to report using several services (e.g., academic advising, parking facilities/services, student health insurance, personal counseling services) probably because of their limited time on campus. Conversely, both new freshmen and lower-division students are more likely than upper-division students to report using college orientation and residence hall services.
• Compared to new freshmen and lower-division students, upper-division students are more likely to say that the amount of academic challenge they are getting is "too little."
• When asked which three areas CU-Boulder could change that would do the most to improve their attitudes about CU-Boulder and increase their chances of staying here until graduation:
•    Upper-division students are more likely than the other two groups to say "decrease the bureaucracy/red tape."
•    Lower-division students are more likely than the other two groups to say "increase personal attention from faculty."
•    Both lower-division students and upper-division students are more likely than new freshmen to say "improve academic advising."

• Only one institution, Virginia Polytech, responded to our request for information. They compared the responses of lower-division students to upper-division students (they did not break out the lower-division students into new freshmen and other lower-division). They too found that for several items, upper-division students expressed greater satisfaction than lower-division students. Thus, possibly our finding of less satisfaction for upper-division students is not unique to CU-Boulder and is typical of students at other institutions. However, until we know of similar findings at additional institutions, we cannot be certain of how typical this finding is.

Survey Purpose: To characterize undergraduates' experiences and determine what's going well and what changes should be made to improve the undergraduate experience.

Population: All degree-seeking undergraduates enrolled in CU-Boulder's six undergraduate schools and colleges in spring 1997 who had entered CU-Boulder fall 1996 or before.

Sample: 1,497 students, in 16 sampling/analysis groups: lower- and upper-division students in each of three Arts and Sciences (A+S) discipline groups (humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences); in Business, Engineering, Architecture and Planning, and Music; a lower-division A+S group of "open option" students who hadn't declared majors yet; and an upper-division Journalism group. Sampling fractions ranged from 5% for several groups in A+S to 50% in Music; these different sampling fractions were used in order to achieve approximately equal numbers of sample members in each group.

Response rate: The total response rate was 43%. However, the response rate equivalent is 56%. This is the response rate we estimate we would have achieved had we remailed a questionnaire to and phoned all students who did not complete the questionnaire during the first month; instead we did remail and phone follow-ups with less than of the non-respondents due to cost considerations. Response rates for the 16 college groups typically ranged between 40-45%; exceptions include 54% for upper division business students and 30% for upper division humanities students.

Reporting: A full report on the all-campus results can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.Colorado.EDU/pba/. Results by college are available by calling the Office of Planning, Budget, and Analysis (492-8631).
 
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In the Appendix are twelve sections of results which present the ratings for each of new freshmen, lower-division students, and upper-division students.

Section 1: General Thoughts About CU-Boulder
Section 2: Use of Services
Section 3: Satisfaction with Services
Section 4: Satisfaction with Aspects of the Campus Environment
Section 5: How Undergraduates Spend Their Time
Section 6: Activities on which Undergraduates are Spending MORE Time than Expected
Section 7: Activities on which Undergraduates are Spending LESS Time than Expected
Section 8: Undergraduates' Amount of Effort
Section 9: Why Undergraduates Attend College
Section 10: Why Undergraduates Choose CU-Boulder
Section 11: How CU-Boulder Could Improve
Section 12: Most Troubling Personal Issue
 

Survey Description: The Undergraduate Survey consists of the nationally normed Student Opinion Survey (SOS), plus 30 locally-developed questions. The SOS is developed, scored, and normed by American College Testing (ACT). The survey asked about:

• Students' use of and satisfaction with several services (e.g., academic advising, financial aid)
• Students' satisfaction with several aspects of the undergraduate experience
• How students use their time
• Why students are in college and why they chose to enroll at CU-Boulder
• The aspects that CU-Boulder students would most like to see changed
• The personal issue with the greatest potential for preventing students from getting a degree

Data collection proceeded in three waves:

• Wave 1: questionnaire and reminder postcard mailed to all 1,497 sample members at end of February, 1997
• Wave 2: re-mail and phone reminders, end of March 1997, to a sample of 258, or 27% of those who had not responded (excluding known bad addresses) as of that date
• Wave 3: phone interviews, beginning of May, to the 165 students (64%) in the re-mail sample who hadn't yet responded. Interviewers asked six key questions from the survey and encouraged students to complete and return their surveys quickly.

• Wave 1: 37%, 554 of the 1,497 students in the sample responded in the first wave
• Wave 2: 32%, 82 of the 258 sampled for this wave (includes some respondents also reached by telephone in Wave 3)
• Wave 3: 39% completed the phone interview, 42 of the 165 attempted were reached and interviewed

We compared the responses of the respondents in each wave to determine if students who didn't complete the written questionnaire (Wave 3 phone respondents) had different attitudes and experiences than students who did complete the written questionnaire but only after several promptings (Wave 2 respondents), and whether Wave 2 and Wave 3 respondents were different from students who responded right away without prompting (Wave 1 respondents). Wave 3 and Wave 2 respondents are very similar in their expressed attitudes, so we can assume that the Wave 2 sample members who did complete the questionnaire are typical of all the Wave 2 sample members and all non-respondents. However, Wave 2 and 3 respondents are slightly different from Wave 1 respondents (e.g., they are less likely to expect to get a CU-Boulder degree, less likely to be working for pay, and have a lower CU GPA than wave 1 respondents). Therefore, using multiple follow-ups in order to get Waves 2 and 3 sample members to respond was important in terms of making sure that we heard from a representative sample of students.

We weighted all analyses to take into account the different sampling fractions, response rates, and differential follow-up. All figures in Displays 1-12 are based on responses from the following unweighted numbers of students:

New Freshmen                           142
Other Lower Division Students   177
Upper Division Students             317

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Last revision 07/01/03