Using HERI Data to
Answer Questions about
Your School
Tools
and
Techniques
HERI Surveys are the
MATERIALS
&
STATISTICS are the
TOOLS
Materials
CSS 2000 Data File from
WhatsaMatta University
Frostbite Falls, MN
• 7,356 Entering Freshmen took the CIRP in Fall 1996.
• Every one of them took the CSS in Spring 2000.
• File contains 531 variables from both surveys.
Tools
HERI’s Stat Package of Choice
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
Version 10
•Frequency distributions
•Crosstabulations
•Correlations
•Multiple Stepwise Regression
•Factor Analysis
•Descriptives
•Recoding values
•Computing new variables as
•mathematical functions of
old ones.
•Subsetting by type of respondent
•Only Stat package HERI knows
that provides output for
CAMBRA.
CONTROVERSY AT W.M.U.
Coach Bobby Day
Dean Primand Proper
Does Participation in
Intercollegiate Athletics Promote
Leadership Ability??
Creating The Environmental Variable
COMPUTE intsport=1.
IF (colact14=2 OR colact15=2) intsport=2.
VARIABLE LABELS
intsport ‘ Participated in Intercollegiate Sport?’.
VALUE LABELS
intsport 1 ‘No’ 2 ‘Yes’.
EXECUTE.
FIRST TRY
INTSPORT v. CSSRAT08
WHAT ABOUT THE PRETEST?
INTSPORT v. SIFRAT08
Creating a Change Variable
COMPUTE leadchg = cssrat08 - sifrat08.
RECODE leadchg (1 thru 4=3)(0=2)(-1 thru -4=1).
VARIABLE LABELS
leadchg ‘Change in Self-Perceived Leadership Ability’.
VALUE LABELS
leadchg 1 ‘Decreased’ 2 ‘Same’ 3 ‘Increased’.
EXECUTE.
AN I.E.O. TABLE
INTSPORT v. LEADCHG
A “POORMAN’S” I.E.O. TABLE
INTSPORT v. SLFCHG08
SO WHAT’S THE ANSWER??
Sorry, Coach Day.
Primand Proper was right this time.
Our investigation of the available data suggests that although students
who participated in intercollegiate athletes are more likely to have a
higher self-perception of leadership ability than non-athletes, this
tendency is accounted for largely by the fact that athletes already had a
higher tendency when they entered college. An examination of changes
in self-perceived leadership ability since college entry suggests that the
difference between athletes and non-athletes is at best very small.
…But Wait a Minute…
KORN’S CHEESECAKE THEORY
A Claim Made by the WMU Brochure
Doris Knight
Under Assistant
West Coast
Promo Person
WhatsaMatta University
prides itself on creating good
citizens. All graduating
students will have enhanced
knowledge of and dedication
to making a difference in the
communities they join as
workers, neighbors &
parents.
Answering the Easy Question
Not too shabby WMU, but…
What about the other 32.6%?
Gone Fishin’
A Fast Way to Find Relationships
Multiple Stepwise Regression
REGRESSION
/DESCRIPTIVES mean stddev corr sig n
/MISSING listwise
/STATISTICS coeff outs r anova change zpp
/CRITERIA=PIN(.05) POUT(.10)
/NOORIGIN
/DEPENDENT slfchg11
/METHOD=FORWARD csssex income hsgpa sifobj10 cssrace1 to cssrace7
sifact10 sifact16 sifact19 sifobj02 sifobj11 sifobj12
/METHOD=FORWARD colact01 TO colact23 genact09.
Strongest Predictors of SLFCHG11
Variable
Description
CSSRACE1 White
B
-.102
Beta
-.050
SIG
.002
CSSRACE4 Asian
-.104
-.036
.013
GENACT09 Volunteer Work
.144
.124
.000
COLACT11 Race/Cult Wkshp
.117
.070
.000
COLACT09 Eth Stud Class
.102
.067
.000
COLACT13 In Race/Eth Org
.107
.051
.000
COLACT10 Women Stud Class
.063
.033
.010
COLACT08 Took Remed Class
.103
.027
.029
COLACT23 Took Ldr Training
.058
.022
.009
Creating a Scale
COMPUTE awareact = colact09 + colact10 + colact11 +
colac23 + genact09.
VARIABLE LABELS
awareact ‘Awareness Enhancing Activities?’.
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=awareact..
SO WHAT’S THE ANSWER??
Students that avail themselves of the courses and programs
designed in part to increase community awareness definitiely
show substantial increases in that awareness. Moreover, the
increase is additive, in that participation in more of these
courses and programs is connected with a larger increase in
community awareness.
Not all Analyses are I-E-O
The Admissions Director has been concerned that W.M.U. is not
listed very high in the US News & World Report ranking of colleges
and universities. He is interested in learning about the relationship
that may exist between freshmen entrance examination scores and
choosing W.M.U. because of its academic reputation.
Not all Questions Are Smart Ones
But it isn’t very politic to say so. Better to demonstrate how dumb
a question is with some hard numbers.
First Look -- Correlation
Second Look -- Crosstab
But wait! We have two big problems here!!
The SAT composite score can have as many as 1201 values!!
W.M.U also accepts ACT scores!!
How to Fix???
How about using frequency distributions to determine logical
intervals for SAT and ACT scores?
ACTCOMP
Recoding & Combining SAT/ACT
RECODE satcomp (600 THRU 1076) (1077 THRU 1280) (1281 THRU 1590)
INTO tscore1.
RECODE actcomp (1 THRU 22) (23 THRU 28) (29 THRU 36) INTO tscore2.
COMPUTE entexam = tscore1.
IF (Missing(tscore1)) entexam = tscore2.
VARIABLE LABELS entexam ‘Combined SAT/ACT Scores’.
VALUE LABELS entexam 1 ‘Low’ 2 ‘Medium’ 3 ‘High’.
And Finally, the Crosstab
If at first you don’t succeed…
…try, try again
Answering a Question You Weren’t Asked
SO WHAT’S THE ANSWER??
We regret that we were unable to find any relationship between
students choosing to attend WhatsaMatta University because of its
academic reputation and their College Entrance Exam scores.
BUT
We did find a relationship between the major students intend to enter
and W.M.U.’s perceived academic reputation. It would appear that
students are more concerned about the academic reputation of individual
departments within W.M.U than the university as a whole.