OIR - Student Satisfaction Survey, Fall 2001
Introduction
The Student Satisfaction Survey was administered during the fall semester of the 2001 - 2002 academic year to a sample of 3,315 Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) students selected from the official fall enrollment dataset. The survey was designed to measure student levels of satisfaction with the services and programs provided at SVSU.
Survey Procedure
Packets with the appropriate number of survey instruments, including instructions for the faculty member (Appendix A) were delivered to 151 faculty members by October 12, 2001. To ensure for adequate student representation, surveys were administered in those classes occurring during the Monday and Wednesday 10:00 a.m. and Monday 6:00 p.m. hour, and Tuesday and Thursday 9:30 a.m. hour, between October 15 and October 26, 2001. Participating faculty were then asked to return the completed surveys to OIR once the surveys were administered.
Survey Instrument
The Student Satisfaction Survey consists of 80 items (Appendix B). Items contained within the survey sought to determine general student levels of satisfaction with campus services, academic courses, faculty and staff, campus environment, and programs (e.g., athletics, social events, etc.). The OIR drew the sample of classes, as well as the student demographic data, from official files found on the Colleague database. Survey respondents were asked to provide a student identification number or social security number in order to merge demographic variables from the official database for more detailed analysis of student responses. Procedures were carefully followed to protect the confidentiality of information obtained from and about students. Of the 3,315 respondents, 435 chose not to provide an identifier. As a result only those surveys (2,880) with identifiers were analyzed in order to complete more detailed analysis of the data using demographic variables from the official database.
The survey is comprised of three components: part one consists of twenty-four Likert scale-type items used to determine the level of satisfaction with most services and programs offered on campus, on a scale of "very satisfied" to "very dissatisfied." Once surveys were returned responses were converted to a numeric format and assigned values ("very satisfied" - 4, "somewhat satisfied" - 3, "somewhat dissatisfied" - 2, and "very dissatisfied" - 1). Average scores were then computed for each item. Part two consists of forty-seven items that asked students to indicate if they "agree" or disagree" with various statements pertaining to campus life (e.g., courses, campus grounds, feeling safe and secure, athletics, etc.). Responses were converted to a numeric format and assigned numeric values ("agree" - 2, "disagree" - 1). Average scores were then computed for each item. Part three consists of two open-ended items, encouraging students to provide comments and feedback regarding the various survey items. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) with simple frequency distributions and crosstabs by academic division, ethnicity, classification (undergraduate and graduate), gender and residence (on-campus versus off-campus) computed for each survey item.
Participants
Survey participants were 2,880 SVSU undergraduate (96.01%) and graduate (3.99%) students selected from 2001 Fall semester classes. Tables found on page 7 through 9 show the distribution of selected demographic characteristics of the sample as they compare with the distribution of the overall fall student enrollment. These comparisons show that the sample closely represents the overall student population on all characteristics.
Representation by undergraduate classification was relatively equal with 37.47% freshmen, 17.60% sophomore, 18.82% junior and 22.12% senior-level student completing the survey. A small percentage of graduate level students (3.99%; including specialist-level) completed the survey. Most survey respondents indicated being enrolled on a full-time basis (82.85%) while 72.06% were currently employed. Undergraduate students indicated being employed an average of 24.43 hours per week with graduate level students working, on average, almost 13 more hours per week (37.43 hours per week). Almost three quarters (73.46%) of those surveyed live off-campus while 26.54% live on campus in residence halls and apartments.
Results
A ranking of survey items one through thirty shows that students appear to be quite satisfied with the services and programs offered at SVSU, especially the University Village and the Living Center, Student Health Services, and the Ryder Center. Survey respondents are less satisfied with the parking facilities, the First-Year Suites and Pine Grove Apartments, and the Doan Café. For the most part, students agree that they are satisfied with the cleanliness of the campus grounds and campus buildings, feel safe and secure on campus, and that SVSU has a good reputation within the community. On the other hand, they are less likely to agree that attendance at varsity athletic events is an important part of their SVSU experience and that athletic events are promoted in such a way as to encourage their attendance, and that there is adequate parking on campus or that students have a voice in college policies.