In the Student Satisfaction Inventory administered to Brookhaven College students during the fall semester of 2000, the following broad observations can be made.
The areas in order of greatest importance to Brookhaven College students are:
The students’ responses indicated that Brookhaven College exceeds the national norm in two of the top six areas, is equal to the national norm in three areas and is below national norms in one area. The area rated highest in student satisfaction was Responsiveness to Diverse Populations, although this item was not in the top five areas rated most important to Brookhaven students.
The Brookhaven College Student Satisfaction Inventory was administered during the fall semester of 2000 with the purpose of ascertaining our students’ satisfaction with a wide range of college experiences. By periodically measuring student satisfaction, we as an institution can pinpoint our strengths as well as areas of needed improvement. A total of 382 useable surveys were returned. The results were tabulated by Noel-Levitz and normed against responses from a national sample of more than 96,000 community college students.
The Student Satisfaction Inventory measures satisfaction within the context of student expectation. The twelve major scales are:
Students were asked to rate seventy inventory items on a scale from 1 to 7. The findings were presented with three scores for each item: (1) satisfaction score (2) an importance score (3) a performance gap score. A high performance gap score indicates the institution is not meeting the student expectations. A low performance gap score indicates the institution is meeting the expectations.
The top five most important areas for Brookhaven students, in order, are:
The top five importance scales for the national norm were similar to the responses from Brookhaven College.
Brookhaven College is significantly above the national norm in meeting student expectations for two areas:
The attached table displays the survey items divided into three categories with the top five items for each category. The major divisions are:
The top five importance scales for the national norm were similar to the responses from Brookhaven College.
For each survey item, a satisfaction score is matched with importance score and a performance gap is computed. The performance gap is the difference between importance and satisfaction.
Of the five items rated as most important, our students’ responses were significantly above the national norm in satisfaction for the following 3 items:
The remaining two items were above the national norms. See table.
The five survey items with the highest level of satisfaction are displayed in the second section of the table. Brookhaven College students’ responses were significantly above the national norm for three of the five areas. See table.
The remaining two items were above the national norms. See table.
The five survey items with the largest performance gaps - difference between expectation and satisfaction - are displayed in the third section of the table. Brookhaven College students’ satisfaction responses were significantly below the national norm on four of the five items:
The remaining item was above the national norm. See table.
The areas/items of greatest opportunity are defined as those with an Importance rating of 5.50 or more (highly important) and a Performance Gap of 1.00 or more (unmet need).
Academic Services: none
Admissions and Financial Aid:
Campus Climate:
Campus Support Services: none
Concern for the Individual:
Instructional Effectiveness:
Registration Effectiveness: none
Safety and Security: none
Service Excellened:
Student Centeredness: none
Responsiveness to Diverse Populations: No importance ratings were collected for this area.
The matrices below illustrate how well Brookhaven College meets the expectation of its students:
Ideally all data points should fall into quadrant 1 representing high satisfaction with areas that matter most to students. Although all eleven major scales and all survey items fell into quadrant 1, some survey items clearly ranked lower in satisfaction than others. These items are addressed specifically in the section areas/items of greatest opportunity.
Recognize the Noel-Levitz survey accomplishes its purpose by providing a broad overview of student satisfaction. However, broad overviews are by nature, relatively superficial. When results suggest a problem may exist, the appropriate step is to investigate the situation in greater depth. A variety of methodologies could be used to gather further information. This includes a follow-up survey with questions that focus on specific aspects of the situation (e.g. where is the problem, what is the specific problem and why is it a problem). A questionnaire survey or focus group discussion with specific students or staff and faculty are valuable options.