According to a recent survey, UT students are less satisfied than their peers in terms of evaluating their overall educational experience at UT and whether they would attend UT again if they could start over.
Data from the National Survey of Student Engagement was presented by Todd Diacon, executive director for academic success and program support, at the Academic Affairs and Student Success Committee meeting on Thursday morning.
The numbers showed that UT seniors in 2008 presented lower scores — showing less participation, less satisfaction or less frequency in activities — in a number of categories.
The biggest differences between UT and peer institutions came to the aforementioned questions, asking how students would rate their overall educational experience and whether they’d attend again.
Even though both figures were below peers, they remained satisfactory overall. When evaluating the overall educational experience, UT students averaged 3.05, while Tennessee Higher Education Commission peers averaged 3.42. On a four-point scale, those answers to the question indicate an answer between “good” and “excellent,” though THEC peers are closer to excellent.
In the same way, UT and THEC peers both range between “probably yes” and “definitely yes” when asking whether students would attend the same school again, but THEC peers are closer to “definitely yes” than UT. UT rates at 3.19, while THEC peers are at 3.51 for that school year.
2008 UT seniors also were below THEC peers in satisfaction when rating academic advising and relationships with others at the university. 2008 UT seniors ranked lower in participating in practicums, internships, volunteer work, research projects and study abroad. According to the survey, those surveyed also ranked lower when evaluating how their institution supported academic success or helped them understand people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds.
The only figure shown in the presentation that placed UT above THEC peers was students completing class presentations.
Trustee Don Stansberry worried that all the categories shown except one showed UT below THEC peers. Provost Susan Martin said at the meeting that many of the figures showed the difference between UT and THEC peers as insignificant.
According to the report, many of the effect-size differences were below .3, meaning they were “hardly noticeable.” The report said, “This does not mean that we can ignore differences. But it does mean that we need to make sure we understand the meaning of those differences.”
Alexander McCormick, director of the National Survey of Student Engagement, emphasized that the differences are effect sizes, not percentage differences.
“(With) .3, you’re pretty modest in terms of differences,” McCormick said. “You’re entering into the range of something that might be noticeable, but it’s not going to be a dramatic difference.”
McCormick said there’s always a question with universities asking when figures like this become significant and meaningful, considering it’s a sample size of students willing to take the survey that constitutes the results. The response rate for the last data was 39 percent.
“We have these students that responded to the survey, and how much can we infer in that for all of our students?” McCormick asked.
He said the impetus of creating the survey was to improve discussion quality about higher education. He said rankings like the U.S. News and World Report ones were reputation-driven and “did not tell you anything about teaching and learning.” He said, with SAT scores, you can virtually reproduce the rankings.
“We wanted to create a survey that refocused the discussion,” McCormick said.
According to the report, the university has already taken action to address issues with advising and study abroad with hiring more advising professionals, changing the way advising is done at freshman orientation, promoting the Ready for the World Initiative and promoting study-abroad scholarships.