Is your survey different than the school one? What sort of intelligence have you gathered using these instruments?
Our school also uses a student survey as a way to capture student satisfaction. I also do a classroom survey at the end of each session.
What changes have you identified using this method? How do you communicate those changes to the students? Do acknowledge the role the surveys played?
How do you do the personal outreach to get feedback? Is this done formally with the group or individually?
Towards the end of each quarter, our students are required to do an online survey for each of their classes. It gives us a great feedback on class content and the instructor's ability. When necessary we implement any changes that are needed and the student's are notified of the changes.
After every course, the students take a survey of how they felt about the class and the instructor. They are able to write comments as well as rank items on a scale of 1-10. Additionally, they will have random surveys about their satisfaction level with the school throughout the year. I personally always try and connect with the students and have them give me feedback during their time with me.
Mike, could you give some examples of these goals? Are they related to specific course competencies or broader, vocational goals? How often do you go through this process?
"... if we do a good job of meeting their needs ..." How is that monitored and measured? What kind of feedback do you get to indicate you're doing a good job?
There are a wide range of solutions in place. Emphasis is placed upon all staff and faculty members to create a "Service" environment. We are here to serve the needs of the students and if we do a good job of meeting their needs we will be successful with retention.
We have regular coaching sessions with our students and set goals with them. In this way, we are helping our students set their expectations and make sure they align with ours.
We have a faculty mentoring program, where each faculty member is assigned a list of students to keep track of. As a facutly memeber we write our students e-mails about twice a month just to say hello and encourage them to drop by. Also we plan monthly lunches where we take them out and sit as a group. These activities give us an opportunity to discuss any issues that they many be having.
We have a program in place where we have actual instructors that students have actually had in classes and or frequently see in hallways. The program is referred to as SSI's ( student services instructor )how it works is when a instructor of a class notices that a student's grades are falling or is having attendance issues,he will alert an SSI via e-mail titled " AT RISK" and the SSI will set up a meeting with the student one on one to see what the problem is and if he can help them.
Sadly, I 'm not sure. Our extremely diverse demographic and the unique religious/academic culture of our university have made "expectations" difficult to define. I think we do a good job of meeting our student's spiritual expectations. They come here expecting evangelical Christianity to be a meaningful component of the curriculum, and it is. That said, I think we are rather weak at evaluating/understanding/managing student expectations regarding academics, time commitment, basic skills, and perhaps even finances. When I meet newly enrolled students on their initial registrations days (or in my courses) I always come across a handful that concern me right out of the starting gate. I try very hard to walk the line between explaining the realities involved in an accelerated adult program, and trying not to scare students off by making early judgments or discouraging comments. It isn't easy. When I meet students in my capacity as an administrator in the student services department, my objective is to be as clear as I can with them about the skills, time commitments, finances, and access to technology they will need to be successful. They assure me that they have appropriate computer access, transportation, time, money for books, etc...but many times I'm left with that nagging suspicion that things are not as the students portray them. This feeling tends to be validated when the student arrives in my class unprepared, or demonstrates a complete lack of facility with technology. We have tried scripting the expectations and communicating them clearly at each touch from the admissions department all the way through to student services, and yet the problem persists. I review the scripts with other departments in an attempt to ensure that we are all communicating the same ideas, and garnering an appropriate understanding of the students' expectations in relation to our own. Everyone assures me that they are having the appropriate dialogues with students, but I see signs that fears over low registrations, and/or misconceptions about the nature of student responsibility can sometimes be a formula for attrition.
Sometimes I don't feel we do enough to ensure student expectations are aligned with what the school can deliver. This really starts at the time the student starts researching which institution he/she will enroll in. Then it becomes the admissions teams responsibility to understand the student expectations and explain what the school can deliver. One thing we encourage is for admission teams to tour the facility and have them tap into one of the faculty members meet with the new student so they can describe the culture of the classroom and the courses offered.
Another practice is to have the Program Chairs contact the new student soon after they enroll so that opens up another opportunity for new students to ask questions of faculty.
These practices work but I don't always feel that this is enough to ensure our retention efforts.
How well attended are the open forum sessions? How do students use them? Do they turn into gripe sessions for the disgruntled few?
We will be starting a student mentoring program, we have an orientation program, we have open forum with the dean and a life management specialist.
Who is on the team? Is this an effective way to deal with student problems?
How do the results of these surveys impact your role at the school? What changes have you made based on this student feedback?
Do the students share information with each other or is this solely for your benefit?
Our school uses student surveys at the end of every class and other once they complete the program.
