It is that time again.
Every other year during the even numbered fall semester, Brookhaven College administers the Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory, SSI, to students. Fall 2008 is our next scheduled survey administration. The SSI is unique in that the survey is based on the premise that student satisfaction can best be evaluated when differences between expectation and satisfaction levels are assessed. Based on this proposal, the instrument operationally defines student satisfaction as the difference between the student’s expectation and perceived reality (satisfaction) of specific institutional factors.
The SSI represents this difference as a performance gap score. The college uses the instrument as a measure of accountability and as a tool to develop interventions and programs to increase student satisfaction and ultimately to improve retention rates. The SSI version used at Brookhaven College includes 70 items of expectation, 10 optional items that may be defined by the institution, six items that assess the institution’s commitment to specific student populations, nine items that assess pre-enrollment factors, three summary items that assess overall satisfaction with the institution, and 13 demographic items that identify demographic characteristics of respondents. The 70 items combine together to make up 12 overarching scales (see Table 1).
Levitz, Noel and Richter (1999) suggested that “institutions must find ways to partner with students to cause the kind of transformational development to take place that will move those who are prone to drop out into the persisters’ camp” (p. 40). The first step in the process is to gain insight into institutional factors related to student persistence.
Comparing results from the 2006 fall administration to the 2004 fall administration four scales showed significant improvement: Safety and Security, Academic Services, Service Excellence, and Registration Effectiveness. Looking deeper into the results, 15 items showed significant improvement. These items tended to coincide with new initiatives and/or practices implemented between fall 2004 and fall 2006.
During the Fall 2008 semester, between Sept. 15 and Nov. 20, approximately 90 sections of credit classes will be selected to be surveyed. In order to have a representative sample of the student population, we will pull a stratified random sample of sections on days of week and times of day. This survey has many options for administration, and faculty members can choose to give the survey in class, for students to take home and bring back as extra credit or to complete in the Testing Center, to name a few options. The SSI is an important survey for the college. It helps us gauge where we are in relation to previous years compared to ourselves and for the first time, in 2008, we will be able to make comparisons based on similar sized community college groups rather than just to a national comparison group.
