By Ana Ruiz Brictson | Staff Writer
Baylor’s Enrolled Student Survey gives students an opportunity to share their perspective on certain areas of Baylor University.
This is the third time the Enrolled Student Survey has been sent out to current undergraduate students. The first two surveys were sent out in 2016 and 2019.
Associate director and coordinator of testing Jana Marak said via email that the survey had a 22.5% response rate in 2016 and a 27.1% response rate in 2019.
Current students who have received the survey have until Feb. 28 to respond, with the opportunity to be entered into a drawing for one of 50 $25 e-gift cards to Amazon if they complete it.
According to Marak, the Center for Academic Success and Engagement has paid close attention to the information provided by the survey in the past. In the 2019 survey, questions about food insecurity were added to measure the need for services in this area.
Results from the past two surveys are available for anyone to see. Departments at Baylor have access to the data in the Microsoft Power BI format, which allows them to use filters to process and analyze the data in their own ways.
“The Office of Institutional Effectiveness provides survey data to all academic program directors to inform their annual academic planning and assessment process,” Marak said.
Marak also said the data for this survey is analyzed using descriptive statistics to show responses to each item by several demographic variables. Some of the items included in the survey are academic units, classification, gender, ethnicity and first-generation status.
“Results are tabulated and presented graphically in Microsoft Power BI,” Marak said. “Results are shared internally as well as publicly available on the web. The data that are shared on the web only reflect responses by academic unit and classification.”
According to Marak, this year, the Enrolled Student Survey was sent out to 13,892 undergraduates, excluding new spring 2022 students.
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, sophomore Paulina Gomez Ibarra said while she was responding to the survey, she realized it was divided into multiple sections, including one that asked about the individual’s background.
Gomez said the section that stood out the most to her focused on how students felt about inclusivity at Baylor. She said it was nice to know Baylor emphasized the importance of students feeling like they belong to the community.
Gomez said she will have to wait and see if the survey organizers truly pay attention to the results, depending on changes that are done for next semester.
“It’s one thing to ask students their perspective, and it’s another to complete the changes that were suggested by students,” Gomez said.
