North Carolina State University
2004 Sophomore Student Survey:
Introduction, Methods and Student Demographic Profile
Introduction
This series of
reports presents findings from the 2004 Sophomore Survey conducted during the
spring semester 2004 at NC State University. Eligible sophomores had completed
45-59 credit hours, with at least 30 at NC State. Students from all 10 undergraduate
academic units, including the First Year College, were included in the study.
This introductory report
describes the survey methods and compares survey respondents to the survey population
on gender, race/ethnicity1, and
academic unit. The next report in the series, 2004
Sophomore Student Survey: All Respondents, is an overview of all students
who participated in the Sophomore Survey. It presents summary statistics for
each survey topic, including student background characteristics and interests,
their assessment of the academic environment and faculty contributions, their
evaluations of student services, and ratings of the extent to which NC State
has contributed to their knowledge, skills, and personal development. The survey
questions and detailed tables of responses by gender, race/ethnicity, and college
are available on the web.
Survey Methods
Respondents
Two data collection methods
were used. Initially, students could respond to the survey via the Web. Students
not completing the web survey received a hardcopy of the questionnaire from
their advisors during the spring advising period. Eligible sophomores returned
a total of 1,215 useable surveys -- 1,121 from the web and 94 from the advising
period.
This represents 59.8 percent of the 2,033 sophomores who were eligible
to participate in the survey. As described below, there are no significant differences
between respondents and the sophomore class with respect to race/ethnicity or college.
Women are slightly overrepresented among survey respondents in comparison to their
proportion in the eligible Sophomore population.
Analyses
The data obtained from
completed surveys were analyzed using standard statistical methods.
While the response rate (59.8%) is not as high as it has been in recent years,
the number of eligible sophomores is fairly large (2,033), resulting in a
fairly low margin of error (± 1.1 at a 95 percent confidence interval).
That is, if 91.4 percent of respondents said they plan to complete their degree
at NC State, we can be 95 percent sure that the true figure would be between 90.3
percent (91.4 � 1.1) and 92.5 percent (91.4 + 1.1) if all eligible sophomores had
responded to the survey 2.
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 in
the Web tables, are less precise than statements based on the total sample. For example,
103 (46.6%) of 221 eligible African American students responded to the survey, but the
population is only one-tenth as big as the whole population for the survey. As a result,
the margin of error for figures reported for African Americans is larger (± 5.1 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.
3 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 Sophomore Class and Survey Respondents
Gender and Race/Ethnicity (Table 2)
There were no significant racial/ethnic differences between the
eligible sophomores enrolled at NC State in the spring of 2004 and those in the
survey population.
Just under 82 percent of the sophomore students were white, 10.9 percent African
American, and 7.6 percent other minorities. Among survey respondents, 84 percent
were white, 8.5 percent African American, and 7.5 percent other minorities. As
noted above, women are slightly overrepresented among survey respondents: they
make up 46.6 percent of the Sophomore population, but represent 52.8 percent of
survey respondents.
Table 2: Demographics
of Sophomore Class and Survey Respondents; Response Rates
Racial/Ethnic Group
(N)
% |
Sophomore Population |
Survey Respondents |
Response Rate |
Female |
Male |
Total |
Female |
Male |
Total |
Female |
Male |
Total |
White |
(760)
37.4% |
(898)
44.2% |
(1658)
81.6% |
(537)
44.2% |
(484)
39.8% |
(1021)
84.0% |
70.7% |
53.9% |
61.6% |
Native American |
(11)
0.5% |
(7)
0.3% |
(18)
0.9% |
(7)
0.6% |
(3)
0.2% |
(10)
0.8% |
63.6% |
42.9% |
55.6% |
African American |
(120)
5.9% |
(101)
5.0% |
(221)
10.9% |
(64)
5.3% |
(39)
3.2% |
(103)
8.5% |
53.3% |
38.6% |
46.6% |
Asian |
(41)
2.0% |
(55)
2.7% |
(96)
4.7% |
(23)
1.9% |
(36)
3.0% |
(59)
4.9% |
56.1% |
65.4% |
61.5% |
Hispanic |
(16)
0.8% |
(24)
1.2% |
(40)
2.0% |
(10)
0.8% |
(12)
1.0% |
(22)
1.8% |
62.5% |
50.0% |
55.0% |
Total |
(948)
46.6% |
(1085)
53.4% |
(2033)
100.0% |
(641)
52.8% |
(574)
47.2% |
(1215)
100.0% |
67.6% |
52.9% |
59.8% |
Note: Survey respondents are included in figures for the Sophomore Class
Academic Units (Table 2)
Table 2 presents enrollment
of sophomore students and survey respondents by academic unit. There were
no significant differences in classification between the sophomore class and the survey respondents.
The largest percentages of sophomore students were enrolled in the College of
Engineering (COE) followed by the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS).
Table 2-2: Classification by Academic Unit
COLLEGE |
Sophomore Population |
Survey Respondents |
Response Rate |
N |
% |
N |
% |
Agriculture and Life Sciences |
400 |
19.7% |
243 |
20.0% |
60.8% |
Design |
57 |
2.8% |
30 |
2.5% |
52.6% |
Education |
48 |
2.4% |
36 |
3.0% |
75.0% |
Engineering |
523 |
25.7% |
332 |
27.3% |
63.5% |
Natural Resources |
79 |
3.9% |
41 |
3.4% |
51.9% |
Humanities and Social Sciences |
416 |
20.5% |
272 |
22.4% |
65.4% |
Physical and Mathematical Sciences |
64 |
3.2% |
41 |
3.4% |
64.1% |
Textiles |
42 |
2.1% |
32 |
2.6% |
76.2% |
Management |
267 |
13.1% |
129 |
10.6% |
48.3% |
First Year College |
137 |
6.7% |
59 |
4.9% |
43.1% |
Total |
2033 |
100.0% |
1215 |
100.0% |
59.8% |
Back to Top
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 asked 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. A 95 percent confidence interval contains the true population
value in 95% of the possible samples of a given size from the population. Margins
of error for individual questions are usually even smaller than the overall margin
of error because the variance of proportions in each survey item is almost always
less than the 50/50 figure used in calculating the confidence interval. Thus,
the margin of error given is conservative.(back)
3. In analyses not presented in these reports, responses were
tested for significant differences between women and men, between white, African
American, and other minority students, and between the different colleges. All
questions requiring categorical responses were analyzed using chi-squared tests,
and all questions with numerically coded responses were analyzed with either T-tests
or one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey's multiple comparison procedure.
Complete results are available from UPA on request.(back)
For more information on
the 2004 Sophomore 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: September, 2004
Download a Microsoft
Word Version of this report.
Return
to 2004 Sophomore Survey Table of Contents Page
Return
to OIRP Survey Page
Return to
OIRP Home Page
