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North Carolina State University
2006 Faculty Well-Being Survey
Introduction, Research Methods, and Response Rates


Introduction
In fall 2006 NC State's Office of Institutional Planning and Research office (UPA) administered the Faculty Well-Being Survey. The primary goal of the survey was to collect information from the faculty to better enable the University to work towards meeting its Strategic Plan's Investment Priority "to help attract, develop, and retain a faculty of the highest quality." While the initial request for the survey came from the Chancellor and Provost, an advisory committee with representatives from various units across campus was responsible for identifying key areas of faculty concern to investigate, administering the survey, conducting the data analyses, and (in on-going efforts with input from the entire campus community) interpreting the results, preparing various reports, and making them publicly available.

This document provides a brief overview of the history of the project and the development of the questionnaire, describes the survey population, details how the online survey was administered, and gives response rates broken down by various sub-groups of the population. Links to reports providing more detailed information are provided. A copy of the questionnaire with overall results to the survey, an executive summary on the overall results, and tables of results broken down by various sub-groups of the survey population (specifically, by college, rank, tenure status, administrative experience, gender, race/ethnicity, citizenship, age, and number of years employed at NC State) are available online on the Table of Contents page.

In the coming months the advisory committee will work with the campus community to identify specific areas of interest from the survey to explore more fully. Reports and/or presentations on these areas of interest (e.g., the RPT process, diversity concerns, campus leadership) will be shared as available.

History and Development1
Although various faculty members at NC State have been asked to participate in surveys over the years to collect information on specific issues of concern (e.g., probationary tenure-track faculty, senior faculty), the university has not conducted a broad-based, campus-wide survey of its faculty since its participation in the Higher Education Research Institute's (HERI) Faculty Survey in 1995. The 2006 Faculty Well-Being Survey initially grew out of then-Chancellor Fox's request in 2004 for UPA to conduct a faculty survey on the campus climate as a follow-up to a similar survey of students conducted in spring 2004. However, the scope of the survey was soon broadened beyond an assessment of the campus climate to include a wide range of faculty concerns.

UPA's Associate Director for Survey Research, Dr. Nancy Whelchel, organized an advisory committee to identify key areas of interest and develop the questionnaire. The advisory committee consisted of top-level representatives from the Faculty Senate, Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, Office for Equal Opportunity and Equity, Office for Diversity and African American Affairs, Human Resources, and the University Director for Assessment, in addition to Office of Institutional Planning and Research staff2. The major goal of the survey project was to collect information that would be useful to the university community in identifying what NC State is doing well and what challenges the university faces in promoting faculty well-being. Ideally, the resulting data would better enable the university to work towards making improvements in areas of concern identified by the survey. The committee built on a model of faculty well-being previously used by Dr. Jose Picart, Vice Provost for Diversity and African American Affairs, in his prior position at West Point, tailoring it to address areas of concern specific to faculty at NC State University. In addition, the committee explored faculty and staff surveys administered at other universities. When possible, the NC State questionnaire included questions similar or identical to these surveys in order to allow for comparisons with other universities. Ultimately the questionnaire included 13 sections related to faculty well-being for tenure-track faculty, and 12 for non-tenure track faculty:

Altogether there were about 350 forced-choice questions on the survey, most of which employed a 4-point Likert response option scale (e.g., "very satisfied," "satisfied," "dissatisfied," "very dissatisfied"). Response options did not include a middle or neutral response option (e.g., "neither satisfied nor dissatisfied") but did include a "don't know" type option when it was judged likely that some respondents would not have any experience on which to base an opinion (specifically, "insufficient experience to judge"). The questionnaire also included a limited number of open-ended questions.

During the summer of 2006, Dr. Whelchel gave presentations on the project to the NC State University Executive Officers, Vice Provosts, Dean's Council, and University Diversity Advisory Committee, and Karen Helm (Director of UPA) gave a presentation to the Faculty Senate. Dr. Whelchel also gave routine updates to Dr. Nina Allen, Chair of the Faculty. All groups were encouraged to talk to their constituents about the project and to provide feedback on the questionnaire, in particular to make suggestions for topics and/or specific items to include (or exclude). The questionnaire was pre-tested with a group of tenure-track faculty, two groups of lecturers, and a department head. Revisions were made to the questionnaire based on feedback from the presentations and the pre-tests. Dr. Whelchel also worked with the Office of Legal Affairs to address issues of confidentiality with the data collection and dissemination3, and with the university's Institutional Review Board4.

Survey Population
The survey population was designed to be as inclusive as possible. All on-campus tenure-track (tenured and probationary) and non-tenure-track faculty and lecturers with an FTE of at least .75 (regardless of funding source) in both the AY05-06 and AY06-07 NC State University Personnel Date File were eligible to participate. This group included those "special faculty" designated as "practicum," "research," "extension," "clinical," or "teaching." Eligible lecturers were those meeting the FTE criteria above and not having a time-limited appointment. The survey population also included those designated as "instructors," those with teaching appointments in Music and Physical Education, and those in First Year College. Finally, all Department Heads were included in the population. Excluded from the population were adjunct and visiting faculty, librarians, field faculty, and all those with occupational activity code as something other than "instructional" (with the exceptions noted above, e.g., Department Heads). No sampling was done - - all faculty in the population as defined above were invited to participate in the survey. The final survey population size was 1,625. (More details on the demographic make-up of the survey population are included in discussions of response rates below.)

Online Survey Development and Administration
UPA staff did all programming to create the online survey and hosted it on their secure server. Only members of the survey population, who were required to log on to the survey using their university Unity ID and password, could access the survey. A randomly generated unique ID number, and not the Unity ID, was retained on each individual survey record. For the duration of the data collection process UPA maintained a datafile linking the randomly generated IDs to contact information for each member of the survey population in order to facilitate follow-up reminders and the data cleaning process. As per item 47790 in the North Carolina Program Records Retention and Disposition Schedule, this latter datafile was destroyed after the data cleaning process, thereby assuring the confidentiality of all respondents.

Because the questionnaire was long (with about 350 questions in total) there were concerns with both respondent burden and computer "time out" problems. In order to minimize these potential problems and enhance participation rates, each of the 13 sections on the questionnaire were created as separate "pages." At the end of each "page" (section) the respondent was required to submit that series of questions, and elect whether to continue on with the next section (for which the specific topic was given) or exit the survey and return to complete it at a later time. The number of questions remaining on the survey was indicated by letting respondents know when they had completed 25%, 50%, and 75% of the survey. When a respondent who had exited the survey before completing the final section returned to the survey at a later time, he/she was automatically directed to the next section he/she needed to complete. Ultimately, this method proved quite successful, with 90% of those who started the survey completing all 13 sections, and 95.0 percent completed at least half of the survey (see Table 1). Thus, we have partial data for 9.1 percent of the respondents included in the final results.

Table 1: Final Section Submitted: Number and Percentage of Respondents Stopping at Each Section of the Survey
Section N Percent
B: Image and Vision 15 1.3
C: Leadership 5 0.4
D: Faculty-Administration Relationships (thru 25% of questions) 22 1.9
E: Diversity/Multiculturalism 7 0.6
F: Working Relationships 9 0.8
G: Faculty Support and Professional Development (thru 50% of questions) 19 1.7
H: Performance Review, Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure 5 0.4
I: Post-tenure Review 2 0.2
J: Pay and Compensation (thru 75% of questions) 4 0.4
K: Campus Infrastructure/Physical Environment 1 0.1
L: Recreation/Wellness 2 0.2
M: Work Activities 12 1.1
N: Overall Satisfaction (thru 100% of questions) 1,029 90.9
Total 1,132 100.0

Among those completing all sections of the survey, the median time for completion was about 45 minutes. While difficult to determine exactly, it appears that about 22 percent of respondents took advantage of the option to complete the survey in more than one sitting.

Survey Announcements and Invitations5
The research design called for members of the survey population to receive the initial 'pre-notification' letter, an email announcing when the online survey went live, and up to two follow-up reminders for non- or partial-respondents. On August 31, 2006 UPA staff mailed each member of the survey population a pre-notification letter, on the Provost's letterhead, signed by the Provost and the Dean of the respective faculty member's college. Letters were sent via campus mail, addressed to the faculty member's on-campus address. The letter informed faculty about the upcoming survey, and explained the survey's importance in making progress on the University's Strategic Plan's Investment Priority "to help attract, develop, and retain a faculty of the highest quality." The letter explicitly stated that participation in the survey was voluntary and that all responses would be kept confidential. The letter also included information about several incentives to encourage faculty to participate in the voluntary survey; specifically, drawings for two tickets to an NC State football game (donated by the Chancellor's office), a paid University Club membership entrance fee (donated by the NC State University Club), four $50 gift cards for the University Bookstore (donated by the University Finance and Business office), and ten vouchers worth two tickets each for an ARTS NC STATE performance (donated by the Office of Student Affairs).

On September 6, 2006, all members of the survey population (N=1,625) were sent an email from the Provost and his/her respective Dean announcing that the Faculty Well-Being Survey was now available online. (This and all subsequent announcements about the survey informed faculty that a paper copy of the survey was available on request.) In order to keep the names of those who had and had not responded to the survey confidential, all follow-up reminders to non-respondents, and all queries about the survey were handled directly by Dr. Whelchel. On September 12, Dr. Whelchel sent targeted follow-up reminders to non-respondents (N=1,011) and to those who had submitted only partial surveys (N=135). As of that time faculty of color had notably lower rates of participation than did white faculty. To help encourage their participation Dr. Picart and Dr. Marcia Gumpertz (Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff Diversity in the Office for Diversity and African American Affairs) emailed all faculty of color in the survey population (regardless of whether or not they had already submitted the survey), emphasizing the importance sharing their opinions. Dr. Nina Allen, Chair of the Faculty, also sent all voting members of the faculty an email on September 13, again encouraging them to participate in the survey. On September 19, Dr. Whelchel sent a second follow-up reminder to the 689 faculty who had not responded as of that time. In order to circumvent possible problems with emails not reaching the population members, this reminder was sent via campus mail, on UPA letterhead. Finally, on September 22 Dr. Whelchel sent one last follow-up reminder email to the 167 respondents who had submitted some, but not all, sections of the questionnaire.

Response Rate
The Faculty Well-Being Survey was available online for a total of 29 days. Although the originally announced closing date for submitting the survey was September 26, submissions were accepted until October 10. As of that time, 1,132 of the 1,625 faculty in the survey population had submitted either some or all of the survey, for a 69.7 percent response rate, and a margin of error of plus or minus 0.9 percentage points.6

Table 2 presents a breakdown of response rates by various subgroups of the survey population (college, rank, tenure status, appointment [9 or 12 month], gender, race/ethnicity, citizenship, age, and number of years employed at NC State). For the most part, response rates were remarkably consistent across these various groups -- there are literally no statistically significant differences in response rates between any of the aforementioned subgroups. The final survey sample mirrors the actual survey population in terms of its distribution across college, rank, tenure status, 9 or 12 month appointment, gender, race/ethnicity, citizenship, age, and number of years employed at NC State. For example, 24.7 percent of the survey population is in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, as are 24.8 percent of survey respondents. Non-tenure-track lecturers make up 12.4 percent of the survey population and 12.0 percent of respondents. 4.6 percent of the survey population are African American, as are 4.5 percent of respondents. As a results, the overall survey results are generalizable to the survey population as a whole, and results of sub-groups analyses generalizable to the respective groups.

In order to assure confidentiality, results for groups with less than 5 respondents are not presented. Therefore, while responses from the three Native Americans are included in overall results and in their respective group for other categories (e.g., women, associate professors), there is not a separate category for Native American included among the various racial/ethnic groups. Because of their generally similar status with assistant professors, the two instructors responding to the survey are included in results reported for assistant professors.

Table 2: Survey Response Rate and Margin of Error (overall and by subgroups)7
  Survey
Population		 Survey
Respondents		 Response Rate Margin of Error (Plus or Minus)
Total 1,625 1,132 69.7% 0.9
College
(tenure-home)		 Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
Agricultural and Life Sciences 401 24.7 281 24.8 70.1% 1.7
Design 36 2.2 27 2.4 75.0% 4.7
Education 67 4.1 52 4.6 77.6% 3.0
Engineering 246 15.1 164 14.5 66.7% 2.6
First Year College 11 0.7 8 0.7 72.7% 9.4
Humanities and Social Sciences 325 20.0 231 20.4 71.1% 1.9
Management 79 4.9 56 4.9 70.9% 3.8
Natural Resources 78 4.8 61 5.4 78.2% 2.7
Physical and Mathematical Sciences 188 11.6 118 10.4 62.8% 3.4
Student Affairs 37 2.3 30 2.7 81.1% 3.4
Textiles 38 2.3 29 2.6 76.3% 4.3
Veterinary Medicine 119 7.3 75 6.6 63.0% 4.2
Rank Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
Full Professor 652 40.1 461 40.7 70.7% 1.3
Associate Professor 424 26.1 300 26.5 70.8% 1.7
Assistant Professor 342 21.1 233 20.6 68.1% 2.0
Instructor 5 0.3 2 0.2 40.0% 41.6
Lecturer 202 12.4 136 12.0 67.3% 2.7
Tenure Track Status Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
TT: Tenured 1,042 64.1 738 65.2 70.8% 1.1
TT: Non-Tenured 260 16.0 189 16.7 72.7% 1.9
Not Tenure Track 323 19.9 205 18.1 63.5% 2.5
Appointment Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
9 month appointment 1,004 61.8 704 62.2 70.1% 1.1
12 month appointment 621 38.2 428 37.8 68.9% 1.5
Gender Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
Female 465 28.6 339 30.0 72.9% 1.4
Male 1,160 71.4 793 70.1 68.4% 1.1
Race/Ethnicity Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
White 1,377 84.7 962 85.0 69.9% 1.0
African American 74 4.6 51 4.5 68.9% 4.3
Native American 3 0.2 3 0.3 100.0% 0.0
Asian 139 8.6 92 8.1 66.2% 3.5
Hispanic 32 2.0 24 2.1 75.0% 5.0
Citizenship Status Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
US Citizen 1,337 82.3 942 83.2 70.5% 0.9
Resident Alien 217 13.4 148 13.1 68.2% 2.6
Non-Resident Alien 71 4.4 42 3.7 59.2% 6.2
Age Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
Under 40 340 20.9 229 20.2 67.4% 2.1
40 to 55 763 47.0 550 48.6 72.1% 1.2
Over 55 522 32.1 353 31.2 67.6% 1.7
Number of years employed at NCSU Survey Population Survey Respondents Response Rate Margin of Error
N % N %
6 or fewer 483 29.7 334 29.5 69.2% 1.7
7 to 15 years 455 28.0 314 27.7 69.0% 1.7
16 to 25 433 26.7 296 26.2 68.4% 1.8
More than 25 years 254 15.6 188 16.6 74.0% 1.9

General Feedback on the Survey Process and Instrument
Although relatively few people provided feedback on the survey process or instrument during the data collection phase, anecdotal reactions to the survey itself (via email, phone calls, etc.) were general positive. The most commonly expressed concern was from faculty who were not in the survey population wanting to participate. A few faculty wrote or called to note that the survey took longer than anticipated to complete, and a few commented on the lack of a 'neutral' response option for most questions. A few also contacted Dr. Whelchel to discuss the confidentiality of the survey. Many faculty, however, expressed their appreciation for being given the opportunity to share their opinions in such a survey.

For more information
For more information about the survey project or results, to provide feedback, or to suggest topics for further exploration, please contact Dr. Nancy Whelchel at 515-4184 or ncsu_surveys@ncsu.edu.

Endnotes:
1. See Appendix A for a more thorough discussion of the history of the project. (back)
2. See Appendix B for a complete list of committee members.(back)
3. Discussions between David Drooz, Senior Associate General Council for the University, and the NC Department of Cultural Resources ultimately led to an amendment to the N.C. Program Records Retention and Disposition Schedule to allow for the destruction of surveys, working papers, and data that could personally identify survey respondents.(back)
4. Because of the nature of the survey - internal assessment - - the project did not fall under the purview of IRB. However, IRB procedures were followed through all stages of the project.(back)
5. See Appendix C for an example of all announcements.(back)
6. That is, if 78.0 percent of the respondents answered a question saying they are "satisfied" working at NC State, we can be 95 percent sure that the true figure would be between 78.9 percent (78.0 + 0.9) and 77.1 percent (78.0 - 0.9) if all faculty had responded to the survey. The margin of error increases as the sample size decreases, so statements for various subgroups, such as the separate figures reported for full professors and assistant professors, are less precise than statements based on the total sample (see Table 2 for the margin of error for sub-groups).(back)
7. Survey respondent "College" is based on that college selected by respondent (indicating on which college responses to subsequent questions are based). (back)


For more information on the NC State University 2006 Faculty Well-Being Survey contact:
Dr. Nancy Whelchel, Associate Director for Survey Research
Office of Institutional Planning and Research
Box 7002
NCSU
Phone: (919) 515-4184
Email: ncsu_surveys@ncsu.edu

Posted: January, 2007

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