To: Adam Sherman and Carrie Evans

From: Mitchell Catalano

Date: 12/8/2016
RE: MPA Orientation Context and Summary

Background
As the Evans School grows in its number and diversity of students, it is becoming
increasingly clear that orientation practices must meet varied needs of our graduate level
students. Our students enter into their Evans school experience with myriad levels of
experiences as well as life experiences leading to a unique transition process for each
individual. Recognizing this need, the Student Services team compiled past orientation
evaluations and identified areas for improvement in how we measure our ability to
conduct orientation activities that provides useful information to a wide range of graduate
student transition experiences.
Orientation for the Fall quarter of 2016 was held in late September. In October, key
members of Student Services collaborated with the Assistant Dean of Institutional Studies
to create an updated assessment reflective of new additions to orientation as well certain
student demographics which were accounted for in various areas of our overall
orientation.
Survey Design
The team reviewed relevant assessment research to identify any practices in collecting our
targeted outcome. A specific yet brief search for academic articles on the topic revealed
that minimal to no research currently exists about promising practices in orientation in
Public Affairs education. This led to a collaborative effort in developing a survey focusing
on questions that would yield actionable results.
The survey itself utilized a mixed methods approach using both quantitative and
qualitative questions. It included a combination of Likert scale questions in addition to
three extended response questions aimed at drawing more detail from survey
respondents. Each Likert scale question evaluated a students level of satisfaction with
particular aspect of the orientation experience. Open ended questions used to collect
additional feedback were also included at the end of the survey. The survey was built
using Qualtrics and released in an online format only
The survey also utilized embedded data to collect unique responses for different student
demographics. Populations of international students, veteran students, and students who
attended our Math Camps course over the summer were directed to additional and specific
questions about those experiences. Those questions utilized quantitative Likert scale
questions with the opportunity to expand upon those responses in the open ended
responses at the end of the survey.
Implementation and Administration
The survey was administered by the Assistant Dean of Institutional Studies between
October 12th and October 24th. Students received the initial survey invitation on Monday,
October 17th. Sending out invitations to participate in a survey on a Monday usually results
in a 10-13% higher initial response rate than on any other day of the week. 1

1 https://www.surveymonkey.com/blog/2011/08/16/day-of-the-week/
Survey Results
Overall, the data resulting from the survey indicate the effort invested yielded an overall
valuable experience that can serve as the basis for further improvements and additions in
orientation for future years.
Survey Meta Data
The survey was distributed to the 175 MPA students who attended the Evans School Fall
2016 Orientation and received approximately a 47% response rate. The core Likert-scale
questions, asking students about their levels of satisfaction with particular sections of the
orientation process, received between 88 and 82 responses. Open-ended questions in
which students were invited to share additional thoughts, often related to their particular
demographic (international student, student veteran, etc.) or surveying qualitative data
about low scoring Likert-scale questions, received between 177 responses, with the
general feedback questions receiving the most responses.
Survey Data and Statistics
Staff supporting the administration of the survey compiled initial survey results. These can
be made available to others upon request to the Assistant Dean of Institutional Studies.
Next Steps
The student services team will review the initial survey results and conduct additional
synthesis of the data to make informed recommendations for future orientation
experiences. The team may also review the success of this survey instrument to
determine whether to administer the assessment in a similar or different framework for
future orientations.