National Surveys of First-Year Curricular and Co-Curricular Practices

 

Overview ♦ Findings ♦ About the Sample ♦ Survey Instruments

 

As one of its initial research projects, the Policy Center on the First Year of College (now Gardner Institute) conducted national surveys of first-year structures, policies, and practices in the collegiate curriculum and co-curriculum. Hyperlinks to two separate survey instruments were embedded in e-mail messages sent to chief academic officers and chief student affairs officers at 621 two- and four-year colleges and universities. The instruments asked a broad range of questions, and responses to these questions have been analyzed by institutional size, type (2-year and 4-year), and Carnegie classification (2000 edition). The survey instruments were designed by Policy Center staff members, Dr. Betsy Barefoot (principle investigator), Dr. Randy Swing, and John N. Gardner, with input from a nationally known team of educational research experts and first-year program directors.

This national survey is not intended to be diagnostic or prescriptive. It does not, in and of itself, paint a picture of "best practice." Rather it reveals common practice, for better or worse, in the first college year across the curriculum and the co-curriculum. Some responses are consistent with anecdotal evidence about the first year, but other responses are in direct conflict with some widely held beliefs about what happens to first-year students in and out of the classroom.

 

The following links will direct interested readers to findings in various formats derived from the survey responses. 

Summary of Curricular Survey Findings

 

 

Summary of Co-Curricular Survey Findings  

Co-Curricular Survey Results 

 

 621 institutions, stratified by Carnegie classification, were in the original random sample population. Hyperlinks to the survey instruments (curricular and co-curricular) were embedded in e-mail messages.

The hyperlink to the curricular survey was sent successfully to 586 chief academic officers.

The hyperlink to the co-curricular survey was sent successfully to 568 chief student affairs officers

Curricular Survey: 586 transmissions, 323 responses (54.7%)