The proposed questionnaire item set is organized into five major sections:

A. Academic Experience,

B. Academic Services and Facilities,

C. University Services,

D. Campus Social Environment and Personal Development,

E. Student Research and Technology, and

F. Overall Satisfaction with Educational Experience.

Each of these six sections is comprised of a series of performance indicators supported by one or more questionnaire items. Responses to the individual items within an indicator will be summarized at the level of the performance indicator. A complete listing of performance indicators is available at http://www.sariweb.ucdavis.edu/DavisQE2Q/PerformanceIndicators.html.

Performance indicators will be constructed from responses to the few items that constitute each measure. For example, section C. University Services is comprised of 13 performance indicators that include Admissions, Residence Halls, Rules and Regulations, and 10 others. One of these 13 indicators, Use of Time (C.10), includes four fill in the blank questionnaire items asking for number of hours spent per week in various activities. Responses to these four items will be summarized to produce a performance indicator of balance of time spent on academic activities outside the classroom. The other performance indictors in section C are of a more standard type and can aggregated directly.

Survey Administration

One way in which this survey project will differ from traditional administrations is that it is designed to more efficiently produce information. Some items will be asked of all students and others will be asked of a student sample depending on organizational purview of the issue measured by the item. Items asked of all students will support reporting at the departmental level for issues that are either the responsibility of academic departments or have been shown by research to be most closely tied to faculty interaction with students. Items asked of a sample of students will support reporting at the unit level and/or at the institutional level for issues of general concern.

Items from the first section, A. Academic Experience, will be asked of all students to support reporting at the academic department level because the academic department has the best opportunity to influence the outcomes measured. For example, Section A includes items assessing opportunities for internships, independent study, and research. Whether or not a student’s educational experience includes these opportunities is very clearly a shared responsibility but is primarily the bailiwick of academic units. Responses to these items should therefore be reported at the departmental level.

In contrast, items from the other sections measure performance more appropriately reported at the unit and institutional levels. For example, the third section, C. University Services, includes indicator C.3 Personal Health Services and Safety Issues. This indicator consists of responses to five items: Student Health Center services, Counseling Center Services, Campus Alcohol and Substance Abuse Programs, Personal Safety Programs, and Campus Health Insurance Program. These items assess an institutional-level service and there is no obvious reason to report on the performance of health services at the level of an academic department. Only a sample of undergraduate students needs to respond to these items to support assessment at the institutional level.

Competing needs to ask a sample of students to respond to some items and all students to respond to others can be resolved with a series of questionnaires, each with common set of core items. Producing a series of questionnaires with core items asked of all students and variable sections asked only of students receiving that particular form is easily done and could be accomplished using traditional mailed survey instruments. For the same reasons, a special survey will be designed for first-year students that is tailored to admissions and residence hall aspects of the educational experience. A series of traditional mail questionnaires would be a better alternative than asking all students to respond to all items, but it would be very expensive. Electronic mail contact and web-based questionnaire administration is a more cost effective solution because there is very little incremental cost directly associated with number of students surveyed. Web-based surveys of 1,000 or 10,000 students cost Student Affairs comparable expenditures of direct and indirect resources. Web-based surveys have their own challenges but production, processing, and mailing costs are greatly reduced.

Summary

To summarize, Student Affairs Research proposes to administer a census survey of undergraduate students using e-mail contact and web-based administration of a series of questionnaires designed to elicit a series of performance indicators in five areas. Every undergraduate student will be asked to respond to all items in Section A, Academic Experience, and to a random sample of items from the other sections. Universal administration of items in Sections A creates the possibility of reporting these performance indicators at the academic department level. Responses to sections B, C, D, E and F will be reported at the unit and/or at the institutional level.

Please write or call if I you have questions (752-2003 or Chatman@

ucdavis.edu).

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