2015 Survey of Current and
Recent 4-year College Students
Presented by: Ruth Helman (Mathew
Greenwald and Associates)
#EduAnalyticsDC
April 13, 2015
2015 Survey of Current and
Recent 4-year College Students
PRESENTED TO
#EduAnalyticsDC
April 13, 2015
Greenwald&Associates
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Greenwald&Associates
Purpose of Research
§ Create a model-building survey that yields:
•  A consumer-based measure of thriving
in 4-year post-secondary institutions
•  Provide data for building a predictive
model that correlates individual traits to
specific campus features.
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Research Definition of Thriving
§ Create a model-building survey that yields:
•  A consumer-based measure of thriving
in 4-year post-secondary institutions
•  Provide data for building a predictive
model that correlates individual traits to
specific campus features.
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Research Design
§  Conducted online January 9-30, 2015
§  Used Research Now’s online consumer panel
§  To qualify, potential respondents had to be:
•  Ages 17-24
•  Living in the U.S. before entering college
•  Either a student at a post-secondary 4-year
institution or a recent attendee
•  Obtain at least half of post-secondary in person
(rather than online)
§  Replicated 2014 design, except for inclusion of
200 freshmen
§  Managed by Greenwald & Associates
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Questionnaire
§  Largely same questionnaire as in 2014
•  About 20 questions reworded to make them
more student-friendly
•  Some questions with limited use in 2014
dropped
§  Questions asked covered:
•  Satisfaction with college experience
•  College attributes
•  Respondent attributes, with focus on what
student was like in high school
•  Demographics
§  Median interview length was 22 minutes
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Final Data Set
§  Includes 2,210 quality-checked respondents
•  2014 study includes 2,856
§  using combination of:
•  Trap questions
•  Tests for straight lining
•  Tests for speeding
•  Had to fail multiple tests to be removed
§  Final data set closely matches distribution of age,
gender and race/ethnicity of 17-24 year-olds with
at least some college education in March 2014
Current Population Survey
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MEASURING THRIVING
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What does thriving mean for the family
in a college context?
§ It’s more than simply graduating
§ Academic engagement
§ Social Engagement
§ Their primary concern is personal
happiness
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Research Definition of Thriving
§ When a student experiences the maximum
benefits from a specific college ecosystem,
and demonstrates this by heightened
academic and social integration, and a
deeper sense of happiness.
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Constructing the Thriving Measures
§  Mathew Greenwald & Associates
§  Vibeffect team
§  University at Buffalo
•  education transitions expertise
§  University of Wisconsin
•  Machine Learning expertise
§  Various Advisors, including Howard Everson
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Constructing the Thriving Measures
§  Developers inserted questions about the
hypothesized elements of thriving into 2014
questionnaire
§  Responses to thriving questions used in
exploratory factor analysis
§  As hypothesized, 3 factors were obtained:
•  Academic thriving
•  Social thriving
•  Personal thriving (happiness)
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What goes into the Academic Thriving
Index?
Satisfaction with
academic experience
Classes were exciting
Helped you learn to
be more creative
Helped you become more
comfortable talking about
your ideas
Had people you looked
up to outside of class
Helped you develop as a
person beyond academics
Academic
Thriving
Academic discussions with
faculty outside of class
Helped you acquire concrete
skills useful in the real world
Helped you learn how hard
you can work to achieve a goal
Helped you develop
intellectually
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What goes into the Social Thriving
Index?
Feeling of belonging
Found support from
friends when needed
Enjoyed involvement
in non-academic
organizations
Happy with life in college
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Good times outside
of class
Social
Thriving
Had people you looked
up to outside of class
Satisfaction with number
of friendships
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What goes into the Personal Thriving
Index?
Overall satisfaction with
college experience
Satisfaction with
academic experience
Happy with life in college
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Personal
Thriving
Evaluation of college
choice, from
perfect to worst
Feeling of belonging
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These three factors are combined into
an Overall Thriving Index
Social
Thriving
Academic
Thriving
Personal
Thriving
Overall Thriving
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Constructing the Thriving Measures
§  Confirmatory factor analysis used to confirm
results
§  Scoring system assigns each respondent a score
for each index
§  2015 indices constructed using same scoring
system
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Student Thriving at 4-year PostSecondary Institutions
High Thriver
(score 90+) Medium-high
Thriver
(score 75-89) Medium-low
Thriver
(score 60-74) Low Thriver
(score < 60) Average Index
Score Greenwald&Associates
Academic Social Personal Overall 2014 2015 2014 2015 2014 2015 2014 2015 19% 18% 26% 23% 28% 25% 21% 19% 35 34 31 30 35 34 36 36 26 27 20 22 21 24 23 25 20 21 23 25 16 17 20 20 74.1 73.4 74.1 72.7 76.9 75.8 75.0 74.0 19
Transfers/Dropouts Less Likely to Have
Thrived
Overall Thriving by Transfer/Dropout Status
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DIFFERENCES IN THRIVING
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Students from Higher-Income Families
More Likely to Thrive
Overall Thriving by Family Income
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Whites and Hispanics More Likely to
Thrive
Overall Thriving by Race/Ethnicity
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Students Going on In-person Campus
Tour More Likely to Thrive
Overall Thriving by In-person Tour
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