1999 First-Year Student Survey:

Introduction, Methods, and Student Demographic Profile
(Report No. 2)

Introduction

This series of reports presents findings from the 1999 Entering First-Year Student Survey at NC State. Since 1972, entering students have been surveyed each year during the New Student Orientation sessions conducted in June and August. Students entering into all 11 undergraduate academic units, including the Agricultural Institute and the First Year College, are included. Part of this survey contributes to the University of North Carolina General Administration's (UNC-GA) system-wide efforts to evaluate institutional performance.

This introductory report describes the survey's methodology and provides a demographic profile of survey respondents in comparison to the Fall 1999 First-Year class. It compares gender, race/ethnicity,1 and academic unit of survey respondents with the Fall 1999 first-year student population, and presents academic preparation statistics for first-year students. This report is followed by an overview of all students who participated in the First-Year Survey, 1999 First-Year Student Survey: All Respondents. Summary statistics are presented for each survey topic, including student background characteristics, the application process, educational intent and interests, and goals for undergraduate education. Tables with gender and racial/ethnic comparisons, as well as comparisons between colleges and departments within colleges, are available on the Web.

 

Survey Methods

Respondents

A total of 3,129 first-year students attended these orientation sessions and returned completed surveys. Of this total, 3,072 surveys were usable for this report. This figure represents 83.8 percent of the 3,665 first-year students who were still enrolled in classes 10 days into the Fall 1999 semester. No significant differences were found between respondents and the First-Year class with respect to gender, race/ethnicity, or college. Small but significant differences do exist, however, with respect to SAT total score, admissions index score, and high school grade point average. The differences may be because students with higher academic preparedness are more likely to attend orientation sessions. However, the difference is small enough and the proportion of students attending orientations and returning surveys is high enough that survey results can safely be generalized to the First-Year class.

Analyses

The data obtained from the first-year orientation sessions were analyzed using standard statistical methods. In analyses not presented in these reports, responses were tested to determine whether there were significant differences between women and men, between white, African American, and other minority students, and between the different colleges.2

Because the response rate is very high (83.8%) and the number of incoming students is large (3,665), the margin of error for these results is very low -- under one percent (.28%) at a 95 percent confidence interval. That is, if 26.1 percent of the respondents say they were "very certain" of their college major, we can be 95 percent sure that the true figure would be between 25.82 percent (26.1 - .28) and 26.38 percent (26.1 + .28) if all first-year students had responded to the survey.3 The margin of error increases as the sample size decreases, so statements for various subgroups, such as the separate figures reported for whites and African Americans, are less precise than statements based on the total sample. However, given the high response rate (e.g., 267 of 366, or 73% of African Americans responded to the survey), the margin of error even for small subgroups is only ± 1.5 percent at the 95 percent confidence interval.

These reports attempt to provide a level of detail that makes the data more accessible and interpretable to the novice data user. A primary purpose is to highlight patterns found in responses to related question items or between comparison groups. Such consistencies among items or between groups are usually more important for understanding the data than are the sizes of the differences between individual pairs of ratings or ranks or, to some extent, whether the differences are statistically significant. While some individual small differences might be statistically significant, they may not be substantively meaningful. On the other hand, when even relatively small differences yield consistent patterns within a similar series of questions, the results are potentially more telling.

Demographics of the First-Year Class and Survey Respondents

Gender and Race/Ethnicity (Table 2-1)

There are no significant gender or racial/ethnicity differences between the first-year students actually enrolled at NC State and those in the survey population. Women make up 41.3 percent of the first-year student population, compared to 41.9 percent of the survey respondents. White students make up 83.5 percent of the first-year student population, 10.0 percent are African American, and 6.5 percent are other minorities. Among survey respondents, 84.9 percent are white, 8.7 percent African American, and 6.4 percent other minorities.


Table 2-1: Demographics of First-Year Class and Survey Respondents
Racial/Ethnic Group
N
%
First-Year class
Survey Respondents
Female
Male
Total
Female
Male
Total
White
1,235
33.7%
1,824
49.8%
3,059
83.5%
1,060
34.5%
1,548 
50.4%
2,608
84.9%
African American
188
5.1%
178
4.9%
366
10.0%
151
4.9%
116 
3.8%
267
8.7%
Native American
8
0.2%
15
0.4%
23
0.6%
7
0.2%
12 
0.4%
19
0.6%
Asian
59
1.6%
98
2.7%
157
4.3%
47
1.5%
76
2.5%
123
4.0%
Hispanic
24
0.6%
36
1.0%
60
1.6%
23
0.8%
32
1.0%
55
1.8%
Total
1,514
41.3%
2,151
58.7%
3,665
100.0%
1,288
41.9%
1,784
58.1%
3,072
100.0%
Note: Some percentage values do not sum to 100.0% due to rounding.
Note: Survey respondents are included in figures for the First-Year class.

Academic Units (Table 2-2)

Table 2-2 shows enrollment of first-year students and survey respondents by academic unit. Again there are no significant differences between the first-year students actually enrolled and those responding to the survey. The largest percentages of first-year students enrolled in the College of Engineering (COE, 30.1%) and First Year College (FYC, 23.6%). The smallest percentages enrolled in the College of Forest Resources (CFR, 2.3%) and the School of Design (Design, 2.6%).


Table 2-2: Classification by Academic Unit
Academic Unit
First-Year class
Survey Respondents

N
%
N
%
Agriculture and Life Sciences
556
15.2
478
15.6
Design
94
2.6
80
2.6
Education and Psychology
109
3.0
98
3.2
Engineering
1,102
30.1
997
32.4
Forest Resources
83
2.3
71
2.3
Humanities and Social Sciences
256
7.0
210
6.8
Physical and Mathematical Sciences
130
3.6
106
3.4
Textiles
120
3.3
98
3.2
Management
239
6.5
199
6.5
First Year College
863
23.6
659
21.4
Subtotal
3,552
96.9
2,996
97.5
Agricultural Institute
113
3.1
76
2.5
Total
3,665
100
3,072
100

Academic Preparation (Table 2-3)

Table 2-3 presents academic statistics for the 1999 First-Year class and survey respondents. Survey respondents had higher mean scores on all academic preparation measures than did the First-Year class. Differences in mean SAT total score, Admissions Index, and high school grade point average between the two groups are statistically significant at the alpha = .05 level. Comparing values of each measure, however, reveals that the two groups do not differ substantively in academic preparation. The mean SAT total score, for example, is less than 10 points higher in the First-Year class compared with survey respondents. Both survey respondents and the First-Year class scored higher on the SAT math portion than on the verbal portion.


Table 2-3: Academic Preparation of First-Year Class and Survey Respondents
Academic Preparation Measure
First-Year Class
Survey Respondents
Mean
Mean
SAT Verbal
577.3
580.55
SAT Math
601.9
605.74
SAT Total
1179.2
1186.3
Admissions Index
2.93
2.95
High School GPA
3.86
3.89


Endnotes:
1. The term "racial/ethnic" is used throughout these reports to recognize the potentially blurred distinction between the individual terms. In application materials students were requested to identify themselves using the following categories: Caucasian, African American or Black (not of Hispanic origin), Native American Indian or Alaskan, Asian or Pacific Islander, or Hispanic (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish origin or culture, regardless of race). For analysis purposes, these categories were collapsed into "White," "African American," and "other minorities."(back)
2. Questions requiring categorical responses were analyzed with chi-square tests, and questions with numerically coded responses were analyzed with either T-tests or one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Duncan's multiple comparison procedure. Complete results are available from UPA on request.(back)
3. A 95 percent confidence interval denotes the range of values which contains the true population value in 95 of 100 possible random samples of the first-year student population. The margin of error given in the text is conservative since it was calculated assuming a 50/50 response distribution for all questions. Margins of error for individual survey items are likely to be even smaller because response distributions are rarely symmetrical.(back)


For more information on the 1999 First-Year Student 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: April, 2000

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