These 15 items are at the top
of page 3 on The College Student
Report and have an alpha coefficient of .90 (Table
1). The intercorrelations for these items range from .22
to .65. The lowest intercorrelations are between voting
in elections and analyzing quantitative problems (.22),
acquiring job or work-related knowledge and skills (.22),
and computer and technology skills (.23). Four correlations
were at .57 or higher: between writing and speaking (.66),
and between developing a personal code of values and ethics
and understanding yourself (.61), understanding people
of other racial and ethnic backgrounds (.51), and contributing
to the welfare of your community (.59).
Principal components analysis yielded three factors (Table
2). The first is labeled "personal and social development"
and it is made up of seven items that represent outcomes
that characterize interpersonally effective, ethically
grounded, socially responsible, and civic minded individuals.
The second factor has only three items and is labeled
"practical competence" to reflect the skill
areas needed to be economically independent in today's
post-college job market. The final factor labeled "general
education" is composed of four items that are earmarks
of a well-educated person. Taken together, the three factors
account for about 57.3% of the total variance.
Skewness and kurtosis estimates indicate a fairly normal
distribution of responses. All skewness statistics are
between –1.00 and +1.00 and only two items, understanding
people of other racial and ethnic backgrounds and developing
a personal code of values and ethics are slightly platykurtic
(more responses at the ends and fewer in the middle creating
a flatter distribution). |
In an attempt to obtain concurrent
validity data we obtained, with students' permission,
the end-of-semester gpa and cumulative gpa for 349 undergraduates
at a large research university who completed NSSE 2000
College Student Report.
The self-reported gains items most likely to be a function
of primarily academic performance are those represented
by the general education factor. Using these four items
as the dependent variable, the partial correlations for
semester gpa and cumulative gpa were .16 and .13. respectively.
Both are statistically significant (p<.01).
Other evidence of validity of the Educational and Personal
Growth items can be found from examining the scores of
first-year and senior students, and students in different
majors. Seniors typically report greater overall gains
than first-year students, though on a few personal and
social development items (self-understanding, being honest
and truthful) older students sometimes reported less growth
compared with traditional-age seniors on these individual
items. The patterns of scores reported by students vary
across majors and length of study in the same manner as
has been determined through direct achievement testing.
For example, science and mathematics majors report greater
gains in quantitative analysis compared with other majors.
Also, students in applied majors report greater gains
in vocational competence compared with their counterparts
majoring in history, literature, and the performing arts.
As part of the ongoing NSSE project research program we
are seeking additional evidence of concurrent validity
of these items. |
