Secondary Data Review sample essay

I have examined the reports of student satisfaction surveys of three higher educational establishments. The three schools are (1) Del Mar College located in Corpus Christi, Texas, (2) California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and (3) University of Limerick, Ireland. All three schools have conducted satisfaction surveys different from the one I have presented in my Business Problem Analysis paper. The links to the articles are presented at the end of the document.

In March – April 2000, the director of institutional research and effectiveness together with directors of various student services areas at Del Mar College decided to conduct a student satisfaction survey. They have developed a complex, multi-page questionnaire to obtain information about students’ general satisfaction of the college. The survey was conducted during April-May 2000. Packets with questionnaires were handed out to 34 randomly picked classes, but only 31 packets were completed; and out of 602 expected, only 330 students completed the survey, which is approximately 54.8% return rate.

The majority of questions were scaled on a 5-point Likert scale with a “does not apply” option. However, some secondary questions, like for example students’ demographics, offered short answers. The primary questions consisted of two parts; one measured a student’s satisfaction, and the other one measured student’s perception of importance. In other words, a student had to state his or her satisfaction from a particular service, and then to say whether this service is important (e.g. one can be very satisfied with the swimming pool, but at the same time rate it as not at all important). Primary questions were divided into several groups: library services and facilities, academic advising, admissions and register, student activities, career planning and placement, financial aid, counseling, testing, tutoring, special services, and recruitment and outreach.

In November 2004, at the California Institute of Integral Studies the Dean of Students (with the help of Academic Administrators Group) created a special student satisfaction survey. This survey was aimed at obtaining the attitudes of students to their experiences in administrative an academic areas of the institute. The survey was completed online during January-February 2005; messages with links to questionnaire web-site have been sent to 900 students (or 20% of the total student population). The response rate was 23% (or 208 students).

The questionnaires gathered primary information, i.e. students’ rating of academic and administrative areas of the institute, and some additional information, such as student gender, ethnicity, age, major, and some other. The goal of this part of the survey was to trace any relationship student demographics and answers to primary questions. All questions were divided into five categories: demographics, student services, academic quality, general perception, and open-ended responses. All primary questions offered five answers: excellent, very good, good, fair, poor. In the open-ended response section students were offered to write a short narrative comment or some suggestions for improvement.

During the spring semester of 2003, in Limerick, Ireland, and Marketing Center for Small Business has conducted a survey aimed at measuring the overall satisfaction of the students of University of Limerick. 10,000 questionnaires were sent to randomly picked students, and only 1,852 completed replies have been received. In order to promote participation, survey developers, together with university head figures, have determined to put all participants into a draw for travel vouchers.

The questions were arranged in groups. Barring the first group, dedicated to students’ demographics, questions offered only three answers, namely satisfied, neutral, and dissatisfied. The groups the questionnaire was divided into were the following: general information, course organization and assessment, quality of teaching, quality of lectures and tutorials, computing facilities, cooperation and career services, library services, postgraduates, miscellaneous facilities and services, and entire student body. Each group had one to five ten.

All three data collection techniques in these schools were more or less similar to one another. But they are completely different from what I have suggested in my Business Problem Analysis paper. While I offered simple yes/no questions, Del Mar College, CIIS, and University of Limerick preferred more complex scale questions. The advantage of such scale approach is that the management gets a more precise picture of students' attitudes and satisfaction; they can see not only whether a particular student is satisfied with a service, but to see the degree of his or her satisfaction (very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, etc.). On the other hand, however, there is also a disadvantage of this scale approach. Many higher educational establishments in the United States, and Ireland as well, accept international students. And so the lack of knowledge of English language may cause tremendous biases in survey results. This is exactly the reason why I opted for blanket yes/no questions in my Business Problem Analysis paper, and this is the main difference between my version of a satisfaction survey, and the ones conducted by the three schools mentioned above. Moreover, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates implies that those to be surveyed would probably be foreigners. As a result, the probability that a separate participant would speak English language perfectly is much less than in the three universities mentioned above. So, blanket yes/no questions would simplify the process and ensure that all participants contribute to the survey. While, scale-based questions, let alone open-ended questions, might deter foreigners from answering or prevent them from revealing their true opinion. This simplicity (and maybe not so precise data obtained from the survey) is the cost of getting the opinions of as much EICS and ECFMG applicants as possible.

Another difference between my version of the survey and the ones conducted by the three schools mentioned above is the selection of the sample. While all three researchers from the schools opted for random sample of students, I have offered a census to benefit from the entire population (although it is unattainable in reality).

The questionnaire I have developed in my Business Problem Analysis paper does require revisions. In order to keep it simple in structure and language, and at the same time derive as much benefit as possible, I should have developed much more questions. Each of these questions must have been very specific (though in simple English), and should delve into the reasons of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of a particular applicant with a specific service.

Works Cited

1. Survey of Student Services. 2000. A Special Report on Del Mar College Student Services. From Del Mar College. Web-site: http://www.delmar.edu/IRE/sss2000.pdf

2. Student Satisfaction Survey Report. 2005. From California Institute of Integral Studies. Web-site: http://www.ciis.edu/students/studentsurvey05.pdf

3. UL Student Satisfaction Survey. 2002. Quality Support Unit. From University of Limerick. Web-site: http://www.quality.ul.ie/2002_stud_sat_surv/ 2002ULStSatSurveypub9_files/frame.htm
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