General Education Student Survey 10/25/99

Overview

Highlights/Summary

There were several questions for which responses were very positive. The percentage of positive responses was especially high for questions I (communicate in writing), 2 (communicate orally), 3 (ability to listen and understand), 10 (generate new ideas), and 18 (continue to learn throughout my life).

Question I pertained to how C.O.D. had improved students' writing skills. A little over 74.0% of the respondents selected "strongly agree" or "agree, while only 3.8% responded negatively. What is also interesting is that question 1 significantly interacted with demographic variable G (number of credits earned at C.O.D.). From the cross tabulation table on page 20 it is apparent that the more credits one has earned from C.O.D. the more positive the response for question 1. One can conclude then that students feel that C.O.D. has improved their ability to communicate in writing. This feeling is especially apparent for students with more earned credits - the more credits earned the greater the opportunity to improve those skills.

For question two (communicate orally) 71.8% of the respondents made positive selections, while. only 2.6% made negative selections. Question 2 significantly interacted with variable F (ethnic background). The crosstabulation table on page 14 shows that Whites were less likely to select "strongly agree." One may draw the conclusion that minorities, more than Whites, feel that C.O.D. had improved their ability to communicate orally. Caution should be exercised when drawing conclusions from this table, however, due to the extremely low numbers of minority respondents (i.e. 2 Asians, 2 Black/NonHispanics).

Question 3 asked respondents how C.O.D. had improved their ability to listen and understand. Almost 77% made positive selections and there were no negative selections (the rest being "neutral" selections). Apparently then, students feel that C.O.D. had improved their ability to communicate orally as well as in writing, relative to other skills. In addition, they feel that their ability to listen and understand information had also improved.

Respondents also feel that C.O.D. had improved their ability to generate new ideas (question 10). Seventy-one percent of the respondents made positive selections, while only 2.6 % made negative selections.

The question, which drew the most positive responses, was question 18, "made me want to continue to learn throughout my life." Ninety-one percent of the respondents made positive selections, 9% selected "neutral", and there were no negative selections. So, the vast majority of C.O.D. students feel that, because of their experiences at C.O.D., their desire to learn will remain with them long after college.

Questions 4 (reading skills), 5 (math ability), I I (awareness of computers and technology), 12 (willingness to use computers and technology), 13 (ability to use computers and technology), and 16 (learned political processes) drew somewhat negative responses. For question 4, (C.O.D. had improved my reading skills) only 51.3% of the respondents made positive selections. This is contradictory when one points out that employers rate C.O.D. trained employees rather highly in reading skills. As pointed out in the employers' survey report, incoming freshmen at C.O.D. tend to rate higher in reading skills than freshmen at other colleges (according to the CAAP study). Higher reading skills at the freshmen level may leave little room for improvement. So although respondents feel that C.O.D. did not significantly improve their reading., skills, employers feel that their reading skills were adequate for the job.

Question 4 (reading skills) also interacted with variables A (are you continuing your education) and B (are you working). The crosstabulation table on page 8 illustrates the interaction between question 4 and variable A. It seems as though those not continuing with their education were more likely to select "agree" or "strongly agree" for question 4. This would be expected since those not continuing their education may be graduating or may have taken the courses they desired. These students, having., been at C.O.D. the longest, would be more likely to feel that their reading skills had been improved. Page I I contains the cross tabulation table showing the interaction between question 4 and variable B. From the table it is apparent that those who are working gave more positive responses to question 4. Those who are working may have had more opportunities to apply their reading skills to the "outside world" and may feel that their reading skills are adequate because of their experience at C.O.D.

One of the lowest positive response percentages was for question 5 (improved my math ability). Only 48.7% of the respondents selected positive options and 15 .4% responded negatively. Question 5 interacted with variables F (ethnic background - page 15) and G (number of credits earned at C.O.D. - page 19). From the cross tabulation on page 15 it's apparent that minorities responded more favorably to question 4 (because of so few minorities, caution should be used when drawing conclusions). Page 19 shows that the more credits one have earned the more positive the responses. Students who have taken more courses have had more of an opportunity to improve their math skills. Both tables also illustrate the variety of responses made for question 4 (SD = 1. 19).

Questions I I (awareness of uses of computers and technology), 12 (willingness to use computers and technology), and 13 (ability to use computers and technology) also had relatively low positive response percentage. All three questions dealt with computer and technological ability learned at C.O.D., and all three had positive response percentages of below 60%. Responses for each of the three questions also varied as indicated by the standard deviations (SD = 1.22 for question 11; SD = 1. 14 for question 12; SD = 1.22 for question 13). Question I I significantly interacted with age (see page 13) and ethnic background (see page 16). Question 12 significantly interacted with the variable you continuing your education" (see page 10). Question 13 interacted with ethnic background (see page 17). To summarize the implications from the crosstabulation tables: 1) Minorities more than Whites thought that C.O.D. had improved their computer and technological skills. 2) Younger students (19-22 year-olds) tended to disagree that C.O.D. had improved these skills as compared to older students. This follows from the fact that younger students have had less of an opportunity to develop these skills. 3)Students not continuing their education were more likely to feel that their skills had improved as compared to students continuing their education. If those not continuing their education are more likely to be soon entering the workforce then its logical to assume that they would feel that C.O.D. has improved their computer and technological skills.

The question with the lowest positive response percentage was question 16 (political processes). Only 38.4% of those who responded made a positive selection for the question, "C.O.D. had increased my understanding, of the political process and how I can participate." According to the crosstabulation table on page 18, in general, Whites feel less positive about this statement than minorities. But again, with such low numbers of minority respondents it's difficult to draw conclusions.

The following results section gives a more detailed account of the analyses conducted on this survey.

Results:

The first question on the survey concerning demographics asked the respondents whether or not they were continuing their education. Of the 67 students who answered this question, 60 indicated that they were continuing their education. This question on continuing education was crosstabulated with the 18 opinion questions. In general, students not continuing their education were more likely to select "strongly agree" to the survey questions than those not continuing their education.

The second question on demographics asked the respondents whether or not they were working. Forty-mine of the 71 respondents who answered indicated that they were working. When this question was crosstabulated with the 18 opinion question, it was found that in general, respondents who were working were more likely to chose "strongly agree" than non-working respondents.

The third question on demographics asked the respondents if they were doing something other than working or continuing their education. Only 13 of the 78 respondents answered this question. No further analyses were conducted involving this question.

The fourth question concerned the respondents' age. The ages ranged from 19 to 50. The respondents were broken up into four age groups: 19-22 year-olds, 23-29 year-olds, 30-40 year-olds and 41-50 year-olds. The largest percentage of respondents fell into the 23-29 group (30.8%). In general, there were no apparent differences, although the crosstabulation between age and question I I ("increased my awareness of the possible uses of computers and other technology.") did reveal significance. It was apparent that 30-40 year-olds were more likely to chose "strongly agree" to this question than any of the other age groups. In addition, 23-29 year-olds were more likely to chose "neutral" for this question.

The fifth question on demographics concerned the respondents' gender. Exactly two thirds of the respondents were female. Crosstabulation between this question and the 18 opinion question revealed no significant differences.

The sixth question required the respondents to indicate their ethnic background. Of the respondents who answered this question, roughly three-fourths were white. Although there were no general differences, there were several analyses, which found statistical significance. These analyses were discussed in the previous section.

The last question on demographics concerned the number of credits respondents had earned at C.O.D. Each respondent was placed into one of three groups: 046 credits, 4796 credits, and 97175. The largest percentage of respondents fell into the 0-46 credits group, which comprised 38.5% of the total. The crosstabulations revealed five tables with significant findings. For questions I (communicate in writing), 5 (math ability), 6 (collect and analyze information 1, 7 (ability to understand research) and 15 (tolerance of people and ideas) the results were the same, respondents in the 0-46 credits group were less likely to chose "strongly agree" or "agree" than respondents in the other groups. In general, there seemed to be trend whereby the more credits a respondent had the more favorable the selection. In fact, there was a positive correlation between number of credits earned and opinion (r = .40, p=.O 1).