Understanding Campus Climate: A Discussion on Transparency in Survey Development and Dissemination of Data

Abstract

The aim of this study is to perform an analysis of current student campus climate surveys in an attempt to better understand the current development and utilization of these surveys. We began our analysis with a list of 34,524 accredited schools from the U.S. Department of Education. Because the study focuses on specifically four-year accredited universities, we went through and removed graduate schools, community colleges, trade/vocational schools, medical programs, and theological schools, and condensed the list to 1,733 universities. Out of 1,733 four-year accredited universities, 416 schools had information on their website about a campus climate survey utilized/ongoing between 2016 to present day. Out of those 416 schools, 303 universities made their results available to the public on their websites, 55 universities posted results on their website but required a login to access, and 27 surveys are ongoing, and the remaining schools did not post results. Out of 416 schools, there were 204 student surveys, 61 administration/faculty/staff surveys, and 193 all campus community surveys. One of the hurdles we faced was the restricted access or lack of access altogether on university websites. We believe development processes, the instruments employed, and the results should be readily available to the communities at large, especially when considering researchers or school administrators finding references to build their own campus climate surveys. CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) has been conducting faculty campus climate surveys biennially since 2018. In 2018 and 2020, we used the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) survey, but in 2022 CSUCI opted to build their campus climate survey in-house. One of the goals of this project is to identify the domains commonly used in student campus climate surveys by investigating the current literature available. CSUCI is currently developing a student survey, and we hope to share our development procedures with other universities, and offer ways in which universities can better utilize these results moving forward.

Details

Session 2

3:00pm – 4:30pm

Grand Salon