|
Survey Project: Quality of A College Education Jennifer Jenkins, Daniel Kaneshiro Sociology 357 University of Wisconsin-Madison November 12, 1999 |
|
Survey of 30 students (24 female, 6 male) was conducted at a large university to establish the opinions of content and quality of higher education being received. Data was collected using a Likert-scale type questionnaire and analyzed for significance in overall satisfaction of education in college, city size, and class standing. Hypothesis stated that subjects from bigger cities (X > 500,00) as well as higher class (credit hours) standing would rate the quality of education higher as opposed to subjects from small cities and of lower class standings. Findings were not significant. Introduction The average college student carries a lot of things on his or her mind, the ivory towers of academia open their gates to young, resourceful individuals who are beaming with promise and potential. One of the main concerns of the college student is the drive and motivation from which they pursue their degrees. There is no question that the student’s perspective of the quality of education that he or she is receiving is influenced by many factors. Two of the major factors involved in this attitude formation are the ability to deal with the overwhelming student population of the large state university, and the overall academic vigor of the students that is gained through years of experience as they progress through the university. The competitive atmosphere of the large American University is one that requires self-motivation and performance in the midst of large numbers of peers. Also, for those that do continue and proceed through the first difficult and challenging years in such an environment, their attitudes would generally improve, as students become more accustomed to the pressures of academia. These assumptions could be supported by improved study habits, higher levels of maturity, and overall experience. It would be logical to hypothesize that students hailing from larger, metropolitan areas would fare better than their small town counterparts in the large impersonal setting both inside and outside the classroom. It might also be logical to hypothesize that as their class standing by credit hour progresses, their attitudes and opinions toward the quality of education received would also improve. Methods 1. Sampling It was decided to use two major pools from which subjects should be drawn, one academic, one residential, thus representing samples from both inside and outside the classroom. A freshman women’s studies discussion was used as the academic pooling source, while a University-sponsored International house was used as a residence pool. 2. IV The two independent variables for this study were operationalized in questions
2) “What year are you?” class standing of participants, (freshman, sophomore, etc). 3. Dependent variables
b) (See Appendix) c) Questions attempted to measure the quality of their professors, their overall learning environment, and access to academic resources. Questions were worded as a statements from which participants marked that they “Strongly Agree”, “Agree”, were “Neutral”, “Disagree”, “Strongly Disagree” with. According to the responses collected, many of the subjects were not satisfied with their education. Also a few subjects did not answer question #14 “I enjoy learning in a college environment” suggesting possible uncertainty of subject opinion and assessment of topic content d) The open-ended question (#17) served as an additional outlet for subjects’ opinions. (See Appendix) Participants’ responses were assigned a numeric value based on the quantity of their response. A long positive response received a value of 1, while a short positive response received a value of 2. Neutral responses received 3, a negative response a 4, and a long negative response a 5. No response was given a number of 99 and was coded as a missing value in SPSS analysis. Results 1. (See Appendix TABLE 1)
b) Correlation matrix (See Appendix TABLE 3) analysis produced high reliability (r > .4) for PROFCOM8, INTELL9, COMP10, REGIST12, CRITIC13, ATTEND15 KNOW16. Low reliability (r < .4) was reported in SIZE6, CONTACT7, RESOUR11, and ENJOY14. Analysis of a low correlation in Item-total value for SIZE6 revealed both negative and close to zero correlation, suggesting no relation to other variables. CONTACT7 has one strong correlation, COMP10. RESOUR11 contained scattered negative values as well as values close to zero, implying the absence of relation to other variables. ENJOY14 contained significant correlation with CRITIC13, ATTEND15, and KNOW16. Final index would include all variables except SIZE6 and RESOUR11 because these two variables produced scattered and or negative correlation values, and are therefore unrelated to any other variables. c) Comparison of data from open-ended question and close-ended index scores (See Appendix TABLE 4) produced statistical significance in between groups ANOVA analysis with a p-value of 0.025. However, the relationship between the open-ended question and its index was consistent with the index used to measure the closed-ended questions. The more positive the response for the open-ended question, the lower the respondent scored. Inversely, the more negative the response for the open-ended question, the higher the respondent scored. This is operationalized in Table 4 as the mean scores increase, as the negative nature of the open-ended response also increases. This consistency adds to the open ended-question validity. 3. Independent-dependent variable relationships a) Index analysis (See Appendix TABLE 5) produced no significance for either independent variable of City Size, or Class Standing. The low p-values resulted could suggest a low validity of the index. b) Analysis of open-ended question comparison with both Independent variables (See Appendix TABLE6) also produced no significant findings. The collected data refutes the hypothesis. c) No other independent variables were used in this study, as Major, Age and Gender have important connotations, it was not expected to have significant effects on quality of education opinion formation. Discussion
2) This study was interesting to the researchers based on the further implications that could be assessed in the event that greater resources were to be provided, a much larger, and much more comprehensive study could be conducted. If such a study could be expanded to include the entire student body of the university, then administrative, supportive, and educational changes could be implicated for the betterment of academic furthering of young minds. |