University survey says advisers are doing well
According to the Analysis, Assessment, and Accreditation department’s 2003 student survey, advisers at Utah State University are in no need of admonishment. The survey indicates that students in general are satisfied with their advisers and with the USU advising system.
“These are big surveys done every year. They involve lots of students,” said H. Craig Petersen, director of Analysis, Assessment, and Accreditation (AAA) at USU. “They look at advising, they look at education, they look at the overall perceptions of USU … they provide good data.”
According to the survey’s findings, posted on the USU Web site, the annual study is divided into two groups, freshmen and sophomores in one group and graduating seniors in the other. Large samples of these two groups are interviewed each year. This year 1,321 freshmen and sophomores as well as 2,110 seniors, or 86 percent of the graduating class, participated in the survey.
According to the survey, 75 percent of graduating seniors said they were satisfied with their advisers and 60 percent said they were satisfied with the USU advising system in general. The numbers were slightly lower for the freshmen and sophomores, with only 65 percent satisfied with their adviser and 56 percent satisfied with the program as a whole. Roughly 20 percent in both groups remained neutral on the subject.
Overall, a majority of students from both groups agreed that their advisers were prepared for their appointments with the necessary materials, gave the students reliable, straightforward advice, did not make the students feel rushed, were readily available for consultation and were generally friendly toward the students.
According to the survey, student appointments with advisers last an average of 20 minutes. Sixty-five percent of the freshmen and sophomores wanted more frequent visits with their advisers, and almost a third of them said they wanted monthly visits with advisers. On the other hand, less than half of the graduating seniors felt they would like to meet with their adviser more often and only 22 percent said they would like to have a monthly meeting.
Both groups said the departmental major requirement sheets were their primary source for academic planning, with advisers ranking second. Most of the students in both groups had seen their adviser at least once during the last school year. Less than a third of the students had met with their adviser four or more times. The biggest reason students didn’t visit their adviser more often, according the results, was that they had obtained the necessary information on the first visit, although almost one fourth of the freshmen and sophomores said they didn’t see their adviser because they didn’t know who their adviser was.
These survey results are in contrast to those of the Associated Students of USU survey on advising conducted last fall, which alleged advising at USU was lacking in certain areas. According to the ASUSU survey, the students polled said they thought advisers should be more accessible, more knowledgeable, and should get involved more personally in their students’ education – results which did not appear in the AAA survey.
Petersen said he thought the discrepancy was due to the difference in the numbers of students surveyed in each study. Only 80 students participated in the ASUSU survey, whereas 3,431 students were involved in the AAA survey.
“These [surveys] provide more accurate data,” Petersen said of the annual studies done by his department.
Besides questions on advising, the AAA survey also included questions on students’ overall perceptions of USU, the quality of the general education courses, and student computer use. According to the survey report, these surveys, one involving first- and second-year students and the other involving graduating seniors, are conducted annually to determine students’ attitudes and perceptions with regard to the USU experience and to see how those attitudes and perceptions change over time.
Petersen said the students reap substantial benefits from these surveys because they assess how the university is doing and give USU administrators suggestions on how to make things better.
“It’s part of the process,” Petersen said.
Full reports on the findings of the various AAA surveys as well as other facts and figures about USU are available online at http://planning.usu.edu/analysis.
-sjeppesen@cc.usu.edu