Contents

Introduction

About the Institutional Priorities Survey™

How to Interpret Your IPS Results

Interpretation of Results Using the Combination Report

Demographic Summary

A profile of the personnel who participated in this study

• Data
• Information

Scale Summary

A quick overview of the findings, clustered by the major scales

• Data
• Information

Institutional Summary

An item-by-item review of personnel responses

• Data
• Information

Summary Items

Another look at perception of student satisfaction

• Data
• Information

Target Group Reports

A breakout of the data by faculty, administration, and staff

• Information

Combination Report (optional)

A profile for the Student Satisfaction Inventory™ data alongside the Institutional Priorities Survey data

• Information

• The Survey
• The Items
• The Scales
  Community, Junior and Technical College Version and Career and Private School Version
• The Scales
  4-Year College and University Version
  
• Reliability and Validity

The Institutional Priorities Survey (IPS) closely parallels the Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI). Its items are carefully worded to mirror the items on the SSI. Whereas the SSI is designed to measure students' satisfaction with a wide range of college experiences, the IPS assesses the priority faculty, staff, and administrators believe the institution should place on the same range of student experiences.

By administering both the IPS and SSI, your institution can determine the discrepancies (gaps) between what students expect and what faculty, staff and administrators believe the focus of the institution should be. By using the IPS and SSI at or near the same time, you'll be able to directly compare importance and agreement/satisfaction scores for each segment of your campus.

Left unexamined, competing priorities can slow the progress on your campus. Used in conjunction with your SSI data, the IPS identifies areas of agreement and disagreement before you propose new initiatives. With the results in hand, you can target areas for intervention with greater confidence and be alerted to areas in need of further examination and discussion.

As with the Student Satisfaction Inventory, the Institutional Priorities Survey asks two questions instead of one. The first question, "How important is it that your institution meet this expectation?" is accompanied by a second question, "What is your level of agreement that your institution is meeting this expectation?" Campus personnel rate each item on a scale of 1-7 by the level of importance of the specific expectation as well as their level of agreement level that the expectation is being met.

The Institutional Priorities Survey results in three different scores for each item - importance, agreement, and performance gap. Importance score ratings reflect how strongly personnel feel about the expectation (the higher the score, the more important it is that the expectation be met for students). Agreement ratings indicate the extent to which personnel agree that your institution has met the expectation (the higher the score, the more in agreement). Performance gap scores (importance rating minus agreement rating) reveal how personnel perceive the expectations are being met overall. A large performance gap score for an item (e.g., 1.5) indicates a perception that your institution is not meeting expectations, whereas a small or zero gap score (e.g., .50) indicates a perception that your institution is meeting expectations. A negative gap score (e.g., -.25) indicates a perception that an institution is exceeding expectations.

In addition to the information provided by the three measurements for each item, inventory composite scales offer a "global" perspective of your personnel's responses. The scales provide an overview of perceptions of your institutional strengths and areas in need of improvement.

Two versions of the inventory are available: the Community, Junior and Technical College version and the Four-Year College and University version. Each version captures the unique features of the type of institution for which it was developed.

Responses are compared to corresponding national norm groups by institutional type: four-year public, four-year private, and community, junior and technical colleges.

The Institutional Priorities Survey collects feedback on over 75 items. Included are:

• 50 items of expectation
• 10 optional items which may be defined by the institution
• 6 items that assess the institution's commitment to specific student populations
• 9 items that assess pre-enrollment factors
• 3 summary items that assess perceptions regarding students' overall satisfaction with the institution
• 8 items that identify demographic characteristics of respondents
• 3 optional items that further identify the demographic characteristics of respondents (you can have personnel indicate their office or department, plus two other demographic characteristics of your choosing)

The Scales

The 12 composite scales are identical for the Institutional Priorities Survey and the Student Satisfaction Inventory, allowing institutional comparisons between the two campus reports. Again, the scales are unique to the versions of the instrument, i.e., the four-year version and the community college version.

4-Year College and University Version
Twelve scales comprise the four-year college and university version:

Academic Advising Effectiveness assesses the comprehensives of your academic advising program. Academic advisors are evaluated on the basis of their knowledge, competence, and personal concern for student success, as well as on their approachability.

Campus Climate assesses the extent to which your institution provides experiences that promote a sense of campus pride and feelings of belonging. This scale also assesses the effectiveness of your institution's channels of communication for students.

Campus Life assesses the effectiveness of student life programs offered by your institution, covering issues ranging from student activities to residence life. This scale also assesses campus policies and procedures to determine perceptions of students' rights and responsibilities.

Campus Support Services assesses the quality of your support programs and services that students utilize in order to make their educational experiences more meaningful and productive. This scale covers areas such as tutoring, the adequacy of the library and computer labs, and the availability of academic and career services.

Concern for the Individual assesses your institution's commitment to treating each student as an individual. Those groups who frequently deal with students on a personal level (e.g., faculty, advisors, counselors) are included in this assessment.

Instructional Effectiveness assesses your students' academic experience, your curriculum, and your campus's overriding commitment to academic excellence. This comprehensive scale covers areas such as the variety of courses offered and the effectiveness of your full-time and adjunct faculty in and out of the classroom.

Recruitment and Financial Aid Effectiveness assesses your institution's ability to enroll students in an effective manner. This scale covers issues such as competence and knowledge of admissions counselors, as well as the effectiveness and availability of financial aid programs.

Registration Effectiveness assesses issues associated with registration and billing. This scale also measures your institution's commitment to making the registration process as smooth and effective as possible.

Responsiveness to Diverse Populations assesses your institution's commitment to specific groups of students enrolled at your institution, e.g. under-represented populations, students with disabilities, commuters, part-time students, and older, returning learners.

Safety and Security assesses your institution's responsiveness to students' personal safety and security on your campus. This scale measures the effectiveness of both security personnel and campus facilities.

Service Excellence assesses the perceived attitude of your staff toward students, especially frontline staff. This scale pinpoints the areas of your campus where quality service and personal concern for students are rated most and least favorably.

Student Centeredness assesses your campus's efforts to convey to students that they are important to your institution. This scale measures the extent to which students feel welcome and valued.

Some items on the inventory contribute to more than one scale. In addition, there are two items (numbers 24 and 49) that are not included in any of the four-year scales.

The Scales

Community, Junior and Technical College Version

Twelve scales comprise the community, junior and technical college version:

Academic Advising and Counseling Effectiveness assesses the comprehensives of your academic advising program. Academic advisors and counselors are evaluated on the basis of their knowledge, competence and personal concern for student success, as well as on their approachability.

Academic Services assesses services students utilize to achieve their academic goals. These services include the library, computer labs, and tutoring services.

Admissions and Financial Aid Effectiveness assesses your institution's ability to enroll students in an effective manner. This scale covers issues such as competence and knowledge of admissions counselors as well as the effectiveness and availability of financial aid programs.

Campus Climate assesses the extent to which your institution provides experiences that promote a sense of campus pride and feelings of belonging. This scale also assesses the effectiveness of your institution's channels of communication for students.

Campus Support Services assesses the quality of your support programs and services that students utilize to make their educational experiences more meaningful and productive. This scale includes career services and orientation.

Concern for the Individual assesses your institution's commitment to treating each student as an individual. Those groups who frequently deal with students on a personal level (e.g., faculty, advisors and counselors) are the focus of this scale.

Instructional Effectiveness assesses your students' academic experience, the curriculum, and the campus's overriding commitment to academic excellence. This comprehensive scale covers areas such as the variety of courses offered and the effectiveness of your faculty in and out of the classroom.

Registration Effectiveness assesses issues associated with registration and billing. This scale also measures your institution's commitment to making the registration process as smooth and effective as possible.

Responsiveness to Diverse Populations assesses your institution's commitment to specific groups of students enrolled at your institution, e.g. underrepresented populations, students with disabilities, commuters, part-time students, and older, returning learners.

Safety and Security assesses your institution's responsiveness to students' personal safety and security on your campus. This scale measures the effectiveness of both security personnel and campus facilities.

Service Excellence assesses the perceived attitude of staff toward students, especially frontline staff. This scale pinpoints the areas of your campus where quality service and personal concern for students are rated most and least favorably.

Student Centeredness assesses your campus's efforts to convey to students that they are important to the institution. This scale measures your institution's attitude toward students and the extent to which they feel welcome and valued.

Some items on the inventory contribute to more than one scale. In addition, three items (numbers 6, 37, and 48) are not included in any of the two-year scales.

The reliability for the IPS is high. Cronbach's coefficient alpha, which measures internal consistency, was .97 for the importance scores and .94 for the agreement scores. The three-week test-retest reliability estimate of mean importance and agreement scores is .74 and .80 respectively.

The validity of the IPS is strong. It was assessed by correlating respondents' scores on the IPS with their interview responses on a qualitative protocol reflecting the content of the instrument. The interviews with faculty, staff, and administrators were conducted and scored two weeks in advance of the written survey. The mean cross-method validity coefficients were .69 for importance scores and .60 for agreement scores and the individual scale correlation's between the interview responses and the survey responses ranged from .93 to .49 for the importance scales and from .86 to .44 for the agreement scales. Ten of the 11 scale correlation's were significant at the .05 level, thus indicating that the instrument adequately reflects the construct it was designed to measure.

Interpreting Your IPS Results

• General Information and Guidelines
• Demographic Summary
• Scale Summary
• Institutional Summary
• Summary Items
• Target Group Reports
• Optional Combination Report
• Results with Combination Report

It is important to utilize the information provided by both the Institutional Priorities Survey and the Student Satisfaction Inventory when reviewing your results. While the Student Satisfaction Inventory data can stand alone, the Institutional Priority Survey data were not intended to stand alone, but rather to be interpreted in combination with the SSI data.

Like the SSI, the IPS data analyses are comprehensive and the interpretation of the results is quite straightforward. Three mean scores are reported for each item: level of importance (of the expectation), level of agreement (that the expectation is being met), and the performance gap between the two. The means for level of importance and level of agreement result from summing each respondent's rating and dividing by the number of respondents. Then a performance gap score is calculated for each item by taking the mean importance rating and subtracting the mean level of agreement rating.

When interpreting your IPS results, it is especially important to review all three scores - level of importance, level of agreement, and performance gap - and then compare the three scores with your SSI data. We suggest the following four-step process to help you think about your data:

Step 1. Match the 50 items from the Institutional Priorities Survey with the corresponding items from the Student Satisfaction Inventory.

Step 2. Compare the three scores from the IPS and SSI for both the individual items and the scales:

• SSI importance scores with IPS importance scores
• SSI satisfaction scores with IPS agreement scores
• SSI performance gaps with IPS performance gaps

It is likely you will find that the importance scores from the IPS are higher than the scores from the SSI.

Step 3. Compare the numerical rankings of the scores from the IPS and SSI for both the individual items and scales:

• SSI importance rankings with IPS importance rankings
• SSI satisfaction rankings with IPS agreement rankings
• SSI performance gap rankings with IPS performance gap rankings

We find that comparing your student and campus personnel rankings is the most dynamic way to analyze these combined data sets. Converting the scores to numerical rankings allows you to more accurately identify key areas where perceptions of institutional strengths and priorities for intervention are shared by students and campus personnel.

(Please note that if you are utilizing the optional IPS/SSI combination report, the numerical rankings have been computed for you.)

Step 4. Compare your IPS scores with those of the national comparison group that is similar to your own, i.e., four-year private institutions, four-year public institutions, or community, junior or technical colleges.

The Demographic Summary reveals your personnel’s responses to eight standard demographic items and up to three optional items your institution may have defined. Frequency and percentage scores are reported for each item. To learn how the optional items were defined, please consult your institution’s survey administrator.

Scale Summary

This section of the report presents the summary score for the 12 scales in the traditional chart format. The three areas of measurement for each scale and item - importance, satisfaction, and performance gap - for your institution's data are presented alongside those of the national comparison group. In addition, standard deviations (variability of responses) are presented for the satisfaction means for both your institution and the national group.

 

---

Institutional Summary

This section of the Campus Report presents all inventory data in a traditional chart format. The three areas of measurement for each scale and item - importance, agreement, and performance gap - for your institution's data are presented alongside those of the national comparison group. In addition, standard deviations (variability of responses) are presented for the agreement means for both your institution and the national group.

The last column shows the difference between your institution's agreement means and the national group agreement means. If the mean difference in these scores is a positive number, then your personnel have a higher level of agreement that your institution is meeting expectations than the national comparison group. If the mean difference is a negative number, your personnel have a lower level of agreement than the national comparison group.

The statistical significance in the difference of these agreement means has also been calculated. The key for the levels of significance appears at the bottom of each page. The greater the number of asterisks, the greater the confidence in the significance of this difference, and the greater the likelihood that this did not occur by chance. For example, statistical significance at the .05 level indicates that there are five chances in 100 that the difference between your institution's agreement score and the national comparison group agreement score would occur due to chance alone. The .01 level indicates a one in 100 chance and the .001 level indicates a one in 1000 chance.

Means for importance and agreement are calculated by summing respondents' ratings and dividing by the number of respondents. The performance gap means are calculated by taking the difference between the importance rating and the agreement rating.

Four charts are included in this section:

• Chart 1 - scales in order of importance - shows the scales in order of importance, beginning with the scale your personnel deemed most important.
• Chart 2 - items in order of importance - shows the items in order of importance, beginning with the item your personnel deemed most important, including your campus-defined items, if utilized by your institution.
• Chart 3 - scales in alphabetical order - shows the scales in alphabetical order, accompanied by a list of the items included in each scale (link through from Chart 1, and link on each scale).
• Chart 4 - items in sequential order - shows all of the inventory items in sequence, including your campus-defined items, if utilized by your institution.

Please note:

• Importance data are not collected for the six Responsiveness to Diverse Population items.
• Satisfaction data are not collected for the 9 pre-enrollment items.
• National comparison data are not available for campus-defined items.

---

Summary Items

This brief section measures your personnel’s perception of overall student satisfaction with your campus. They are instructed to indicate how they believe students at your institution would respond to questions relating to students’ perceptions that their expectations have been met, ratings of students’ overall level of satisfaction, and the likelihood of students enrolling at your institution if they had it to do all over again. The means and standard deviations for your campus and the national group are reported along with the differences between the two means. The statistical significance has also been calculated.

---

Target Group Reports

The standard Target Group Reports provide a quick synopsis of the scores for your faculty, administrators, and staff in clear, multi-column grids. At a glance, you can compare the scores of these three groups of respondents with your overall campus scores, as well as with the national comparison group specific to institutions like yours. Scales are presented in alphabetical order, followed by items listed in order of importance to personnel at your institution.

Target Group Reports for faculty, administration, and staff are included as part of the standard report. Since the perspectives of these three groups are understandably unique, it is important that the scores of the groups are viewed accordingly. Also included in this section are additional target reports your institution may have selected. These are based on other demographic variables such as gender, tenure, years employed, etc.