Student Opinion Survey (Two-Year College Form) | Spring 2007 |
Located in Winter Haven, in the heart of Florida between Orlando and Tampa, Polk Community College (PCC) serves a dynamic student body—associate degree-seeking traditional and non-traditional students, 40–45% of whom transfer to a four-year institution, and students in the work force for whom training is provided on campus and in the workplace. A new corporate training center for their Corporate College will soon be built; the programs in the center will be targeted at building up the area work force. PCC and the University of Southern Florida (USF) also share a campus in Lakeland and provide full articulation between the two-year PCC and four-year USF programs.
Each year, PCC serves approximately 10,000 degree-seeking students and 10,000 on-the-job students. Collecting, interpreting, and reporting meaningful data that are pertinent to institutional effectiveness, strategic planning, and SACS, retention, and for other purposes are among the responsibilities of Peter Usinger, Director of Institutional Research, Effectiveness, and Planning at PCC.
ACT's Student Opinion Survey (2-year form) (SOS2) is used to collect data for these purposes. The survey was administered in 2001, 2003, and 2006 to degree-seeking students. Survey results are provided to the Strategic Planning Council, where they are used to evaluate and make changes to specific academic and non-academic areas. Results are also provided to all academic and instructional support areas. In addition, SOS2 data are shared with the State Board of Trustees for Community Colleges. In short, Usinger uses the data to document students' assessment of administrative support, support services, and academic services.
Retention is one important issue that Usinger feels can be addressed using the findings from the SOS2. He uses the raw data provided by ACT to compare the student satisfaction of the total group in the freshman year against the same data for the students who continue into their second year. These comparisons allow him to construct a profile of students who do not return—identifying those factors with which they were least satisfied. Various committees, departments, and programs can use these findings to make plans for improvement.
In addition to the findings from the standard survey items, PCC relies heavily on the use of the 30 additional-questions option with open-ended questions to which students respond in the Comments and Suggestions section of the SOS2. Following is an example of a set of additional items used by PCC.
18-26. How large a contribution do you feel your educational experiences at this college have made to your growth and preparation in each of the areas described in items 18-26? Please use the following scale for your responses: a) Very Great, b) Great, c) Moderate, d) Little, e) None.
- Communication Skills (such as reading, writing, speaking, listening)
- Societal Awareness (such as responsibilities as a citizen, understanding diverse cultures, ethical values, social interactions, social systems)
- Global Awareness (such as knowledge of geography, cultural diversity, ecology, world community)
- Critical and Creative Thinking (such as problem solving, decisionmaking, reasoning, observing, having creative insight)
- Preparation for further study
Responses to open-ended questions provide particularly valuable information, Usinger noted.
What are the two most important things that you would like PCC to improve? (Please write them down marked as #1a and #1b in Section VI of the survey.)
About two-thirds of the students completing the survey provide responses to this type of question. Their comments are retrieved from the instruments, and three raters categorize each response. Response clusters are then turned into percent distributions—quantitative data that can be used for reporting purposes.
Recent findings from the open-ended questions led to changes in PCC's academic advising, particularly for nontraditional students (e.g., those working or with families). PCC also added more educational support (e.g., time management, how to pick classes) to their academic advising process.
Usinger adds to ACT's standard reports by writing an Executive Summary, in which he highlights the findings of the current year and trends observed across years. He also writes a Key Findings report (e.g., "What do we need to pay attention to?" and "What services need the most improvement?"). These reports contain information of particular interest to various on-campus committees, groups, and constituents. Review these reports.
ACT's Student Opinion Survey (Two-Year College Form) is one part of the evaluation program at PCC. Findings from the survey items and from self-constructed items allow the school to identify and address issues of concern to students. This is an important piece in PCC's efforts to provide a quality educational experience for all of its students.