Student Assessment
University-wide surveys are coordinated through the Office of Institutional Assessment. In addition, many departments choose to develop and distribute their own survey instruments to students, alumni, employers and/or faculty. The reports below are from the major university-wide surveys.
NSSE
Through the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), first-year and senior students across the country evaluate the quality of their undergraduate experience. The NSSE was designed to determine to what extent students participate in important educational practices and what they gain from their college experience. At UCO, the NSSE is given every three years.
CIRP-TFS
The Cooperative Institutional Research Program's (CIRP) Freshman Survey (TFS) is designed for administration to incoming first-year students before they start classes. The instrument collects extensive information that allows for a snapshot of what your incoming students are like before they experience college.
Key sections of the survey examine:
- Established behaviors in high school;
- Academic preparedness;
- Admissions decisions;
- Expectations of college;
- Interactions with peers and faculty;
- Student values and goals;
- Student demographic characteristics; and,
- Concerns about financing college.
CIRP-YFCY
The Cooperative Institutional Research Program's (CIRP) Your First College Year (YFCY) is a survey designed to provide higher education practitioners and researchers with comprehensive information on the academic and personal development of first-year college students. We give this survey to students at the end of the year at the beginning of which they completed The Freshman Survey.
Specifically, the YFCY is used to:
- Evaluate student adjustment to college;
- Assess students' academic experiences and achievement;
- Collect information about extracurricular experiences;
- Study-specific first-year programs; and,
- Examine student change.
GOS
The Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) is a two-part survey that asks graduates of UCO about their employment, educational or other plans after graduation. The first part of the survey is done just before or after graduation. The second part of the survey occurs six months following graduation. Click here for data.
GSS
The Graduating Student Survey (GSS) is an attachment to the online graduation application. Students have the opportunity to complete this survey prior to applying for graduation. UCO's GSS has been in use for several years. Over time, it has evolved into a tool that is used by campus decision-makers to create change and improve the institution. The GSS contains questions about students' learning experience at UCO. Click here for data.
LIBQUAL
LibQUAL+® is a suite of services that libraries use to solicit, track, understand, and act upon users' opinions of service quality. These services are offered to the library community by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The program's centerpiece is a rigorously tested web-based survey bundled with training that helps libraries assess and improve library services, change organizational culture and market the library.
The goals of LibQUAL+® are to:
- Foster a culture of excellence in providing library service;
- Help libraries better understand user perceptions of library service quality;
- Collect and interpret library user feedback systematically over time;
- Provide libraries with comparable assessment information from peer institutions;
- Identify best practices in library service; and,
- Enhance library staff members' analytical skills for interpreting and acting on data.
NCHA
The American College Health Association's (ACHA) National College Health Assessment (NCHA) has tracked changes in health issues and trends over the last decade, enabling both ACHA and institutions of higher education to adequately identify factors affecting academic performance, respond to questions and concerns about the health of the nation's students, develop a means to address these concerns, and ultimately improve the health and welfare of those students.
Ruffalo Noel Levitz
The Student Satisfaction Inventory and Adult Students Priority Survey measures student satisfaction and priorities by showing how satisfied students are as well as what issues are important to them.
Course Evaluation
The Student Perception of Instructional Effectiveness, also known as SPIE, is UCO's process for eliciting student feedback on instruction for both on-the-ground and online classes. Students are asked to evaluate the instruction in each of their courses using a common form. Summary reports, including student written comments, are returned to instructors for use in refining and improving instruction. Faculty also use SPIE scores in reporting annual instructional activity to their academic department according to the tenure and promotion policies of each college.
For copies of any reports or data, please send a request