2. Purpose and Methods
•Quantitative survey with one open ended question
•Determine graduate students’ scheduling needs
•251 respondents out of 1934 matriculated graduate
students= 13%
3. Importance of Assessment
“Common [assessment] methodologies will yield assessment
information that helps faculty, administrators, and student
service professionals improve educational programs and
services” (Hanson, 2004, p. vii).
“Retention and graduation rates are…especially [of interest] to
students, their families, and contributing alumni. For decades,
retention experts have claimed that an institution’s ability to
demonstrate student success and its ability to attract and recruit
new students are intertwined” (Noel-Levitz, 2008, p.2).
4. Results
• 28% of respondents
disagreed with this
statement: “My
schedule is easy to
predict”
• 61% of respondents
prefer to be on campus
0-1 days a week
5. Discussion
• What do graduate students need?
• Does there need to be a shift in the
way Salem State offers courses for
graduate students?
7. How Change Happens
• Lane’s (2007) factors that
contribute to the resistance
of change:
• Lack of time to become
familiar with change
• Complexity of change
• Perceived attack on
current conditions
• Lane’s (2007) suggestions for
overcoming resistance
• Group
meaning/understanding
• Participatory process
• Communication
8. Conclusion and Recommendations
• Data sharing with School of
Graduate Studies
• Mini-reports for each academic
program
• Timing
• Survey size
• Strong communication
9. References
• Astin,A.W. (1999). Student Involvement:A developmental theory for higher education.
Journal of College Student Development, 40(5).
• Creswell, J.W. (2014). Research design:Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods
approaches.Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications.
• Hanson,G. (2004). Foreward. In Assessing student learning and development: A handbook
for practitioners. San Fancisco: NASPA-Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.
• Noel-Levitz, R. (2008). Retention codifications student success, retention, and graduation:
Definitions, theories practices, patterns, and trends.
• Lane, I. F. (2007). Change in higher education: Understanding and responding to individual
and organizational resistance. Journal ofVeterinary Medical Education, 34(2), 85-92.
doi:10.3138/jvme.34.2.85
• Schlossberg, N. K. (1989). Marginality and mattering: Key issues in building community.
New Directions for Student Services, (48). doi:10.1002/ss.37119894803
Editor's Notes
This semester, I helped to design a survey, with the graduate student advisory board using survey monkey, to poll the graduate students about their course scheduling needs. This survey consisted of 10 multiple choice questions, and one open ended question which was: “is there anything you would like to share with us?” This question allowed students to share their opinion, but it also helps us find focus for future surveys based on their comments.
Here are a couple of characteristics about the survey respondents:
Most of the respondents identified as evening students:
2. Respondents are taking anywhere from 1 to 5 classes, most taking 2 (42% of respondents are taking 2 classes, with 27% taking 3, the next highest choice): in the comments section, many of them identified their field work or practicum as an additional class
3. The top three programs with the highest number of respondents are: MSW, HESA, and MS Counseling and Psych
4. And about 45% of respondents had been in their program for less than a year. I believe this is because graduate students who are graduating may be less inclined to answer a question about their future scheduling, since they no longer have to worry about it.
Overall, we had a 13% response rate, which might sound a little low, but to be honest, I’m just happy anyone responded, and towards the end of this presentation I’ll talk a little bit more about the importance of that percentage.
By completing this assessment, we are striving to learn more about the needs of the students we provides services for. Salem State is a public univeristy in a well populated area of the state offering degree programs in nursing, teaching, ESL, and more! Students come to our college for a variety of reasons, but convenience and location may be some of them. By working together with the students, we can provide something for the community that we all need.
By taking this information, and actually using it to help create change, we have the potential to positively impact student’s successful degree attainment, increase retention of graduate students, and entice new graduate students to come to Salem State.
Degree attainment/Ensure students’ success: if we can provide graduate students classes at times that work well for them, this could help them complete their courses in a more timely manner, which can ensure success
Retention: if students are satisfied with what they are getting, and are not having any difficulties in obtaining their degree, then they are more likely to continue getting their degree at SSU
In the comments section, there were quite a few students who noted that they attended SSU due to the way a program was advertised, but didn’t feel that
they were getting that—an understanding of what we can offer students can impact how we entice new students to our program: they will leave if they
cannot make it work in their schedule,
Let’s discuss what we learned from the survey. With 251 respondents, we received a lot of information, so we couldn’t fit all of it here, but I’ve shared with you some of what I believe to be some of the more important aspects of the survey.
28% of students disagreed with the statement, my schedule is easy to predict. An additional 9% of students strongly disagreed with that statement as well, while 94% of respondents selected that would like to know their schedule in advance.
We also learned that the majority of respondents would prefer to be on campus 0-1 days a week, the rest of the respondents choosing 2-3. This shows that graduate students are looking to cut their time on campus down rather significantly, and it may mean that programs and instructors have to reconsider how they structure their courses.
Finally, one additional question we asked was, “when would you prefer to take your classes” and the overwhelming majority chose the 4-9:00 pm slot. The most popular nights were Monday and Wednesday, with 69% of respondents choosing Monday night, and 72% picking Wednesday night. In the comments, many grads made it clear that the reason that they were choosing that time slot was due to when they could get out of work. It is important to note, that while it was a large majority of students picking the option for night classes, it was not all of them. The largest number of people asking for classes between 9:00 am -4:00 pm was 29, which could mean one class can run. This might be something that each program looks into more in depth.
Overall, the survey shows that graduate students are looking for courses later at night, that meet no more than 3 times a week maximum.
his desire to be on campus for a limited amount of time, also carried into graduate students’ interests in hybrid courses. Hybrid courses are designed to meet 1-2 times monthly on campus for an extended class period, while the rest of the coursework is completed online.
Many graduate students noted that they were at least somewhat interested, or very interested in the idea of hybrid courses. However, students seemed to be most interested in taking hybrid courses over the summer or winter intercessions, more so than during the semester.
Does this mean that during the intercession times, the types of courses offered should follow a different format?
Where are all of our graduate students coming from?
Around the same time that this survey went out, a survey asking graduate students about potential housing scenarios was also released. It would be interesting to see if there is any data, such as graduates students average distance from campus, that might be pertinent to our subject here.
It can be easy to forget that there are more than just residential undergrads on campus. This can lead to a lack of connection between a graduate student and their program. The face to face benefits of students’ interactions with faculty are something Astin, and Schlossberg have found to have a big impact on a student’s connection to the institution, and feelings of belonging. In my graduate research day presentation from 2015 I hypothesized that the strong connections commuter students formed with their faculty members was the reason for their strong feelings of belonging on campus in spite of the fact that the number of commuter students involved on campus had dropped from fall to spring semester. This could also be true for graduate students as well. They are both a nontraditional students, who spend less time on campus.
An additional road bump may be faculty contracts. Faculty contracts stipulate that tenured/tenure track day faulty members do not have to teach after 4:30 pm. This may mean that there needs to be a new negotiation with the contracts, or different course loads. This ties into my final point, which is that the time it might take for big change to happen, is a lot. Due to this challenge of faculty contracts, or the even the size of the department: if they have specific graduate instructors, or use instructors who also teach undergraduate courses, it means that change will not be fast to come about. Especially if students are asking for less time on campus, instructors might need more time to adjust how they structure their lessons, or to get comfortable with distance teaching.
And lastly, how fast will this happen?
IF Lane notes that there are a number of factors that contribute to an institution’s resistance to change, which include: 1. Not having a lot of time to adjust to the change 2. How complex the change is and 3. A defensive approach, due to a perceived attack. These feelings may appear as a result of any suggested change at the university, not just for the faculty and staff members, but for students too.
To combat these feelings of resistance Lane recommends, seek to understand what the change will impact: individual’s job/routine/values, as well as institutional organization. Important to validate their viewpoints and concerns. One way to influence this/make this happen is to work towards a clear outcome and make sure that everyone is on the same page when then envision what they are working for
Another recommendation Lane has is to make the change a participatory process. This means that students, administrators, faculty members, and any one else involved with or impacted by the change should have an opportunity to participate in the discussion surrounding change.
Perhaps next year a change in some questions, we do not out right ask students if they like their current course schedule, we also do not ask how often they meet for their classes. To learn more about how often graduate students REALLY want to be on campus, perhaps the next survey we send can break it down by having one option for each choice.
Having the open ended question at the end, asking students if there is anything that they would like to share, definitely showed that graduate student scheduling could use some change
Only had two weeks to complete the survey, at the end of the year. Perhaps to have a better response, we send out the survey during registration periods for graduate students. That might encourage a larger response
It is important that this information goes somewhere, and does something. That’s the biggest piece of assessment. The why does it matter, and what now factors. This information is being shared with the School of Graduate Studies, as it was done in part with the Graduate Student Advisory Board, and it will be used to create small, “mini-reports” for each program we had respondents from, sharing the information we have learned. This is an important first step in assessing the programs and services we offer for graduate students here at SSU.
