Transcript Slide 1

Enhancing Undergraduate Career Services
and Skills with Alumni Survey Results
American College Personnel Association
March 31, 2014
Angie L. Miller, Ph.D.
Amber D. Lambert, Ph.D.
Center for Postsecondary Research, Indiana University
Presentation Outline
 Literature Review: the need for alumni
assessment
 Specific connections to career services
 Examples from the Strategic National Arts
Alumni Project (SNAAP)
 Career Outcomes: generating materials for
current & prospective students
 Program Assessment: the importance of
opportunities for internships
 Curricular Assessment: aligning with career
skills
Literature Review
 There is an increasing trend for various
assessments at colleges and universities (Kuh
& Ewell, 2010)
 Survey use is popular in higher education
(Kuh & Ikenberry, 2009)
 Students, faculty, administrators, and alumni can
provide information for internal purposes
(curricular/program revisions, strategic planning)
and external purposes (accreditation,
benchmarking)
Literature Review
 Alumni surveys provide knowledge of student
satisfaction as well as acquired skills,
strengths and weaknesses of the institution,
and current career attainment
 Institutions often encounter difficulty in
transforming survey results into actionable
plans for improvement
Literature Review
 Changes to curriculum can be difficult to make, but
institutions must be reactive to market needs
 If institutions do not train students well, the
employability of their graduates will decrease (Evers,
Rush, & Berdrow, 1998)
 In addition to content knowledge from a student's
major, institutions also provide other skills such as
communication, analytical thinking, and creative
thinking (Tait & Godfrey, 1999)
 Students nearing completion of their degrees are
concerned with potential employment, especially in
the current economic climate
Literature Review
 Most, if not all, institutions have some type of
career services office:
 Aimed at providing students with much-needed information
on potential careers
 Focused on pre-graduation work experiences such as
internships and other high impact practices (Kuh, 2008)
 Certain fields, in particular, have recently
been under scrutiny for the career outcomes
of their graduates (Carnevale, Cheah, &
Strohl, 2012)
 Career services are under increasing pressure to supply
students with assistance in multiple areas of career
development
So how can alumni surveys
help career services programs
expand their functionality
and effectiveness?
Examples from the
Strategic National Arts Alumni
Project (SNAAP)
SNAAP
 As an example, we will present some survey
questions, results, and institutional uses from the
Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)
 What is SNAAP?
 Online survey designed to assess and improve
various aspects of arts school education
 Investigates the educational experiences and career
paths of arts graduates nationally
 Findings are provided to educators, policymakers,
and philanthropic organizations to improve arts
training, inform cultural policy, and support artists
Who does SNAAP survey?
 Participants drawn from:
 Arts high schools
 Independent arts colleges
 Arts schools, departments, or programs in
comprehensive colleges/universities
 Cohort Year Sampling
 2008 and 2009 Field Tests: 5, 10, 15, & 20 years out
 2010 Field Test: 1-5, 10, 15, & 20 years out
 2011 and forward: all years to generate the most
comprehensive data possible
Increasing Numbers…
 2011 Administration
 More than 36,000 respondents
 66 institutions
 2012 Administration
 More than 33,000 respondents
 70 institutions
 2013 Administration
 More than 27,000 respondents
 48 institutions
 Now able to combine 2011, 2012, and 2013 respondents to
create a “SNAAP Database” with over 92,000 respondents
Questionnaire Topics

Formal education and degrees

Institutional experience and satisfaction

Postgraduate resources for artists

Career

Arts engagement

Income and debt

Demographics
Career Outcomes Information
*List continues, 45 categories total
Career Outcomes Information
*List continues, 45 categories total
Career Outcomes Information
In 2011 & 2012 data, 80% of alumni reported they were
“very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” as their overall
job satisfaction
Program Assessment: Services
Program Assessment: Services
 Programs and services with low satisfaction may
need to be revised
 Career advising had 59% report either “very
dissatisfied” or “somewhat dissatisfied”
 Additional resources could be devoted to
developing new components of career advising
such as:
 Alumni career panel presentations
 Résumé or portfolio building sessions
 Networking opportunities for graduating students
Program Assessment: Internships
 Data suggests that pre-graduation internship
experiences are important for future success
Program Assessment: Internships
 Those who completed internships were more
satisfied with their overall institutional experience
Program Assessment: Internships
Those who completed an internship also found a job
faster, found jobs that were more closely related to their
training, and were more likely to currently be working
in an arts-related field
Program Assessment: Internships
 Equity concerns: it is important to make sure
opportunities for internships are promoted to
all students
 First generation respondents were less likely to
have completed an internship
Curricular Assessment: Skills
Curricular Assessment: Skills
Curricular Assessment: Skills
 Identify strengths:
 What skills have the highest % of alumni reporting
the institution helped them develop “very much” or
“quite a bit”?
 Identify areas for improvement:
 What skills have the highest % of alumni reporting
the institution helped them develop “very little” or
“not at all”?
 Peer group information provides context:
 Do other institutions have similar strengths and
weaknesses?
Examples From Aggregate Findings
100%
90%
90%
80%
77%
81%
71%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
26%
22%
20%
10%
0%
Artistic technique
Financial and business
management skills
Entrepreneurial skills
"Very" or "Somewhat Important" to profession or work life
Institution contributed "Very much" or "Some" to development of skill
Curricular Assessment: Skills
 Alumni receive strong training in learning artistic
techniques
 Discrepancies between those who say a skill is
important for their work and those who say the
institution helped them develop that skill suggest
some improvements that could be made, such as:
 Requiring business and financial classes, or
incorporating these elements into existing courses
 Include classes looking at the “nontraditional” career
paths of arts graduates
Curricular Assessment: Skills
• Triangulate data with qualitative responses
• Institutions can use this information to stress the
importance of certain skills to current students,
or address curricular areas for improvement if the
training is not relevant
Conclusions
 Assessing alumni can provide important information
for career service offices, including:
 Career outcomes information, which can help generate
materials for students seeking advice on a major to align
with career options
 Specific program assessment, which can provide data
needed to enhance opportunities for internship
experiences that promote future success
 Curricular improvements, which can better synchronize
classroom experiences with necessary post-graduation
skills
Questions or Comments?
 Contact Information:
 Angie L. Miller [email protected]
 Amber D. Lambert [email protected]
Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)
www.snaap.indiana.edu
(812) 856-5824
[email protected]
References
Carnevale, A.P., Cheah, B., & Strohl, J. (2012). College majors, unemployment,
and earnings: Not all college degrees are created equal. Washington, DC: Center
of Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University.
Evers, F.T., Rush, J.C., & Berdrow, I. (1998). The bases of competence: Skills for
lifelong learning and employability. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kuh, G.D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has
access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American
Colleges and Universities.
Kuh, G. D. & Ewell, P. T. (2010). The state of learning outcomes assessment in the
United States. Higher Education Management and Policy, 22(1), 1-20.
Kuh, G. D. & Ikenberry, S. O. (2009). More than you think, less than we need:
Learning outcomes assessment in American higher education, Urbana, IL:
University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute of Learning
Outcomes Assessment.
Tait, H., & Godfrey, H. (1999). Defining and assessing competence in generic
skills. Quality in Higher Education, 5(3), 245-253.