Combined Future Plans Surveys and Survey of Recent Graduates:
Academic Year 2011-2012 Graduates
Introduction, Research Methods, and Response Rates
This series of reports presents combined results from the December 2011 and May 2012 Future Plans Surveys, and the September 2012 Survey of Recent Graduates. The Future Plans Survey (FPS) and Survey of Recent Graduates (SRG) are designed to collect specific information on students' plans following graduation, including detailed information on employment, graduate/professional school attendance, and participation in career-preparation activities while at NC State.
This introductory report provides background on the surveys and an overview of the research methods. A separate report, Future Plans Survey: All Respondents, provides overall results, and the College Comparisons report provides results broken down by the college from which the respondent graduated. Select summaries on results by academic department within college are also available in the Department Summaries reports. Finally, a copy of each survey is available on the Table of Contents page.Background and Research Methods
The Future Plans Survey and Survey of Recent Graduates began as a collaborative effort between NC State's Office of Institutional Planning and Research office (UPA) and the Career Development Center (CDC). Career service offices in various colleges, specifically the Poole College of Management, and the Colleges of Textiles, Design, and Agriculture and Life Sciences, also provided critical support for the project.Historically the CDC and the college career service offices used various means to collect information from NC State's seniors on their 'future plans' at the time of their graduation. While these diverse strategies provided useful information for some units, without a systematic, centralized process for collecting information it was difficult to get a good picture of the future plans for NC State graduates as a whole. In addition, rather than having individual units using their resources to collect information from their respective students, centralizing the project in UPA provided a more efficient and cost-effective mechanism for both administering the survey and providing reports on the results.
To accomplish these objectives UPA worked with CDC and the college career service offices to develop an overall research design and questionnaire that would meet the individual needs of the CDC and colleges as well as that of the University as a whole. UPA administered the pilot Future Plans Survey in December 2010. Based on experiences with and feedback on the pilot survey, the survey was revised for the May 2011 administration, and again slightly revised for the May 2012 administration.
The Survey of Recent Graduates, administered in September, was developed as a follow-up survey to the FPS. The SRG is aimed at reaching out to graduates from the past year who indicated that at the time they completed the FPS they had not yet found full-time employment, had not yet decided on or been accepted into graduate school, or were still undecided on their plans. In addition, graduates from the previous academic year who did not complete the FPS are also invited to participate in the SRG. The SRG, therefore, enables us to provide a more complete picture of the employment and further education of NC State's graduates from the previous academic year, taking into consideration those who might have taken a few months beyond graduation to obtain employment or gain acceptance to graduate/professional school.
The Future Plans Survey is administered to all graduating seniors in the weeks surrounding December and May graduation. In Fall 2011 commencement was on December 17, and the FPS was in the field from December 7, 2011 through January 20, 2012. In Spring 2012 commencement was on May 12, and the FPS was in the field from May 3 until June 1. (The December survey has a longer post-graduation field time because of the winter holidays.) The September 2012 Survey of Recent Graduates was in the field from September 4, 2012 through October 2, 2012.
When administering the December and May Future Plans Surveys, eligible respondents are identified using NC State's Application for Degree file. The population for the September Survey of Recent Graduates is based on the most up-to-date graduation file as well as response sets from the December and May Future Plans Surveys. The final population for the combined surveys, therefore, includes all alumni who graduated in December 2011 or May 2012.
Response Rates
A total of 4,529 undergraduate students received baccalaureate degrees from NC State in Fall 2011 (n=1,395) or Spring 2012 (n=3,134). 3,041 of these graduates responded to the December 2011 FPS, the May 2012 FPS, and/or the September 2012 SRG, for an overall response rate of 67.1%. (To clarify, if a student responded to their FPS in December or May, and then completed the follow-up SRG in September, only their record of responses from the September SRG - - i.e., the most current information - - is included in the combined dataset used in these reports.) The response rates for those who graduated in December 2011 and for those who graduated in May 2012 are nearly identical (66.7% and 67.4%, respectively). An additional 15 students who had applied to graduate in Fall or Spring and completed the FPS at that time ultimately did not officially graduate until the first Summer session in 2012. Results from those 15 graduates are also included in these reports. Participation in the combined surveys varied by college. Excluding the 15 records from the Summer 1 graduates, the College of Textiles and the College of Design had the highest response rates (77.7% and 77.2%, respectively), and the College of Education the lowest (53.9%). The College of Engineering is slightly overrepresented in the overall results, with their students making up only 21.0 percent of the population, yet 22.9 percent of the survey respondents.Table 1: Response Rate, Overall and by College
| College/School | AY11-12 Population |
FPS/SRG Respondents |
Response Rate |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | % | N | % | ||
| CALS | 907 | 20.0% | 555 | 18.3% | 61.2% |
| Design | 114 | 2.5% | 88 | 2.9% | 77.2% |
| CED | 193 | 4.3% | 104 | 3.4% | 53.9% |
| COE | 949 | 21.0% | 697 | 22.9% | 73.4% |
| CNR | 274 | 6.0% | 172 | 5.7% | 62.8% |
| CHASS | 1,101 | 24.3% | 699 | 23.0% | 63.5% |
| PAMS | 164 | 3.6% | 118 | 3.9% | 72.0% |
| COT | 193 | 4.3% | 150 | 4.9% | 77.7% |
| PCOM | 631 | 13.9% | 456 | 15.0% | 72.3% |
| DASA | 3 | 0.1% | 2 | 0.1% | 66.7% |
| Total | 4,529 | 100% | 3,041* | 100% | 67.1% |
Table 2 provides an overview of from which specific survey the responses included in this report are drawn. Among those who graduated in December 2011, the December FPS record was used for 73.2 percent of them, and the September SRG for the remaining 26.8 percent (18.3% who had previously completed the December FPS but indicated at that time they either had not obtained employment or knew where they would be attending graduate/professional school, and 8.5% who had not responded to their December FPS). Among those who graduated in May 2012, the May FPS record was used for 68.6 percent of them, and the September SRG for the remaining 31.3 percent (15.6% who had previously completed the May FPS but indicated at that time they either had not obtained employment or knew where they would be attending graduate/professional school, and 15.7% who had not responded to their May FPS).
Of the 3,056 survey records included in these reports, 22.4 percent come from the December 2011 FPS, 47.7 percent from the May 2012 FPS, and the remaining 30.2 percent from the September 2012 SRG. The September SRG responses include those who had previously completed the December or May FPS but indicated at that time that they had not yet found employment or been accepted to graduate/professional school (16.4%), and those who had not originally responded to their FPS (13.5%). Altogether, 30.4 percent of the survey results in these reports come from those who graduated in December 2011 and 69.1 percent from those who graduated in May 2012 (Note: Due to rounding, percentages may not add up to 100%).Table 2: Survey Results Included, by Semester Graduated
| Survey Results Included in Report | Graduated December 2011 |
Graduated May 2012 |
Graduated Summer 1 2012 |
Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N | % | N | % | N | N | % | |
| December FPS | 681 | 73.2% | 2 | 0% | 1 | 684 | 22.4% |
| May FPS | 0 | 0% | 1,448 | 68.6% | 11 | 1,459 | 47.7% |
| September SRG | 249 | 26.8% | 661 | 31.3% | 3 | 913 | 30.2% |
| (September SRG: FPS respondent) | (170) | (18.3%) | (329) | (15.6%) | (2) | (501) | (16.4%) |
| (September SRG: FPS nonrespondent) | (79) | (8.5%) | (332) | (15.7%) | (1) | (412) | (13.5%) |
| Total | 930 | 30.4% | 2,111 | 69.1% | 15 | 3,056 | 100.0% |
For more information on the Future Plans Survey
contact:
Dr. Nancy Whelchel, Associate Director for Survey
Research
Office of Institutional Planning and Research
Box 7002
NCSU
Phone: (919)
515-4184
Email: Nancy_Whelchel@ncsu.edu
Posted: January, 2013